Law Schools

Top Law School Admin Charged With Embezzlement

Investigators allege she stole almost $200,000.

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bonus money case 100 dollar bills benjamins.jpgOver the course of seven years, the administrator in charge of Notre Dame Law School’s clinical program, Jennifer Ihns, allegedly embezzled almost $200,000. She now faces charges of theft, forgery, and corrupt business influence. Investigators note the scope of Ihns’s crimes may even be larger than that:

“The breadth of her illicit activities may never be fully known—but there are over 255 separate checks on separate days representing separate thefts of university/clinic/clients funds over a seven-and-one-half-year period,” according to a supplemental affidavit submitted by an investigator from the prosecutor’s office.

Ihns was hired as a paralegal by the school in 2009, eventually being promoted to administrator for the clinical program. She had signing authority for the clinic’s accounts, and as reported by Law.com, she took advantage of that:

She employed a series of tactics to cover her tracks, according to the charging documents. In some cases, Ihns altered the scanned images of the checks sent back from the bank to obscure the fact that she had written those checks to herself. She also increased the amount of some valid checks in order to boost the amount of money reimbursed to the clinic by the university in a bid to replenish the accounts she was personally looting, investigators claim.

The four clinical programs that Ihns managed provided legal services to individuals, businesses, and nonprofit organizations, and though the investigation turned up no clear evidence that clients were directly stolen from, Notre Dame paid some clients to ensure they were not harmed by Ihns’s actions.

The financial irregularities were initially discovered in 2016 through a university inquiry. Ihns admitted wrongdoing — though estimated the stolen amount at only $30,000. Prosecutors have indicated that this sparked a full audit, which uncovered additional, unaccounted for funds.

Embezzlement Charges Filed Against Notre Dame Law Clinic Staffer [Law.com]

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headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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