The idea of a fancy, rich priest doesn’t come to our minds. Sandals and a worn gown is what we grow up with when we go to Sunday’s mass. This is not the case of Rev. Donald Harrington, from St. Vincent de Paul founder and president of St. John’s University. Cecilia changed faced years behind bars, not just because of using her students as her servants, stealing millions of dollars, but also being guilty of planning her ex-husband murder two decades ago, but she was not spending a day in jail, the disgraced dean was found dead at her home just a day after her first court appereance.
Hotels (Peninsula hotel and the Regent Hotel) and long stopovers at the Four Seasons Kona resort in Hawaii for his jet lag.
The trips were with a delegation of school officials led by the corrupt dean Cecilia Chang, who is on trial for forcing students to act as her personal servants in exchange for scholarships. She organized the trips to raise millions for the university.
She advice Harrington to accept the expensive gifts since this was a cultural matter and he must say yes to all presents. He wore fitted suits from Sam’s Tailor in Hong Kong, a Patek Philippe wristwatch, ($1,600 to be repaired.)
An Omega wristwatch, he never wore… He was under examination this Thursday by Chang’s lawyer for the gifts he accepted during her period as dean of the university.
He says he only gets $200 monthly and has an inheritance. Federal Judge Sterling Johnson asked him not to answer a question about how much he inherited.
Chang is accused of stealing more than $1 million from the university for personal expenses, travel and gambling. However she denies stealing those millions
This is part of Harrington’s declaration:
“The board of trustees at the university always instructed me to stay at full-service, comfortable hotels because I would be doing heavy work when I was away.”
Cecilia Chang is 57 years old and faces up to 25 years in prison. Her 4,800 square meters mansion has seven bedrooms, five bathrooms and is listed for sale in the U.S. for 2.888 million.
But this is not Chang’s first trial, she was her first husband Ruey Fung Tsai accused her of planning his murder as he fought for his life at the ICU at Elmurst General Hospital on July 10, 1990 after he was shot three times in his back by a young Asian man who opened fire without taking anything when Tsai arrived at his work in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
When investigators arrived at the hospital, Ruey Fung Tsai was unable to speak because of the breathing tube down his throat but he managed to wrote ..
“My wife did this”
He also told then that Cecilia Chang was involved in a business with Queens Borough President Donald Manes who killed himself after his corruption scandal was revealed in 1986.
Cecilla Chang hung herself inside her home in Jamaica Estates, her body was found at about 7:38 a.m by cops after she failed to answered the door when a member of her defense team picked her up at her house. Mrs. Chang is survived by her son Steven who lives in Hawaii but is now in NY, yes, he is the son Cecilia Chang had with Ruey Fung Tsai, whose tuition was allegedly paid with the money his mother stole, who was taken to the airports at 3:00 a.m by Chang;s students who also drove him around, and cooked for him and his girlfriend, and the same who verbally abused these students
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