Orange County will dismiss the charge against the professor who collected more than $12,000 from the University for teaching classes that never met, according to a press release from District Attorney Jim Woodall.
In December, Julius Nyang'oro, the former chairman of the African and Afro-American Studies Department, was charged with obtaining property under false pretenses after he was paid for teaching AFAM 280, a class that never met during the summer of 2011.
Nyang'oro's indictment was the result of a years-long probe by the State Bureau of Investigation that began after athletic clustering was discovered in African and Afro-American Studies classes.
Woodall said he will drop all charges against Nyang'oro because of his cooperation in an investigation being conducted by former federal prosecutor Kenneth Wainstein.
"Nyang’oro has been interviewed on several occasions by Mr. Wainstein and his staff and has agreed to continue cooperating as needed," Woodall said in a statement released Thursday.
Wainstein's investigation is non-criminal, but it will be the first time Nyang'oro has cooperated in a full-scale investigation into the University's athletic and academic scandals.
In August of 2012, former Gov. Jim Martin was commissioned by then-Chancellor Holden Thorp to conduct his own independent review, which resulted in a 74-page report detailing academic irregularities dating back to 1997 in the department. The report, released in December of 2012, laid all blame for the fraudulent courses on Nyang’oro and his administrative assistant Deborah Crowder, who had both already left the University.
In March, Woodall said he wouldn't charge Crowder based on the SBI's findings.
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