Ex-Admin Sentenced For Defrauding Grad School In Essex County

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — The former assistant dean of an Essex County graduate school was sentenced to 36 months in prison on Thursday for defrauding her former employer of more than $1.3 million, federal prosecutors said.

Teresina DeAlmeida, 59, of Warren, and her co-conspirators, Rose Martins, 44, of East Hanover, and Silvia Cardoso, 61, of Warren, pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors didn’t name the specific university in a news release, but Seton Hall officials confirmed the incident took place at the university’s law school, NJ Advance Media previously reported. A spokesperson said the university “immediately conducted a more intensive review utilizing a third-party auditor and notified the appropriate higher education and government entities.”

“This process led to our implementation of additional financial safeguards and controls to reduce the likelihood of similar incidents,” they added.

Sentencing details were announced this week. According to prosecutors, in addition to the prison term, DeAlmeida was sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered restitution of approximately $1,397,000.

Prosecutors released the following allegations about the case:

“Between 2009 and July 2022, DeAlmeida, Martins, and Cardoso conspired to fraudulently misappropriate more than $1.3 million from their former employer, a graduate school of a university in Essex County, New Jersey. During the scheme, DeAlmeida was an assistant dean responsible for financial functions, and Martins served as her assistant. Cardoso, DeAlmeida’s sister, was also employed by the graduate school in a support staff role.”

The defendants used a variety of methods to defraud the university, prosecutors said. They included:

• “Beginning in 2009, DeAlmeida directed a graduate school vendor to pay Martins and Cardoso as though they worked for the vendor, even though they did not perform any services. DeAlmeida and Martins then caused the vendor to submit false invoices to the graduate school over the course of approximately four years to reimburse the vendor for the amounts fraudulently paid to Martins and Cardoso.”
• “From 2010 through 2022, DeAlmeida and Martins directed graduate school vendors to order hundreds of thousands of dollars of gift cards and prepaid debit cards the co-conspirators used for their personal benefit, and then to submit fraudulent invoices to the school purporting to be for goods and services that were never provided. The co-conspirators also misused DeAlmeida’s school-issued credit card to purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars of gift cards and prepaid debit cards from the school’s bookstore. DeAlmeida routinely fraudulently approved these charges and Martins forged the signatures of other employees on internal approvals.”
• “In 2015, Martins opened a shell entity called CMS Content Management Specialist LLC. Although CMS never rendered any services to the graduate school, Martins submitted, and DeAlmeida approved, fraudulent invoices totaling more than $208,000.”
• “The co-conspirators also used DeAlmeida’s school-issued credit card to make tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized personal purchases. For example, DeAlmeida and Martins used the card to make over $70,000 in purchases at an online retailer shipped directly to their homes, including woman’s shoes, smart watches, and bed linens. DeAlmeida and Martins fraudulently altered certain receipts before submitting them to the school for payment.”

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