Resume faked
Sergio Garcia had been charged with two felonies in March 2019
Former SUNY official Sergio Garcia pleads guilty to faking resume.
A former top official at SUNY'S Upstate Medical University pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor criminal charge Wednesday to settle allegations that he had falsified his professional background on the resume he submitted when applying for the $340,000-a-year job.
The guilty plea of Sergio Garcia settled a case in which he had been charged with two felonies in March 2019 following a grand jury investigation by Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick. The investigation began in September 2018 following a Times Union story that raised questions about multiple claims Garcia had made concerning his background.
The newspaper's story on Garcia also revealed that a number of statements he made in a videotaped speech in 2017 at a university lecture hall did not stand up to scrutiny.
Among them were Garcia's account of being present at what he said was a 2011 bombing in Afghanistan that took the life of a young diplomat, statements asserting that he had been interviewed for a U.S. State Department post by thenSecretary of State Colin L. Powell and a claim that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remained his close friend and mentor.
Garcia's account of the bombing — which actually took place in 2013, months after he had left Afghanistan for an academic post in Ohio — was refuted by witnesses who were there; sources close to Powell and Rice shot down Garcia's assertions about them.
Under a plea agreement, Garcia is expected to be sentenced on Nov. 13 to a conditional discharge with restitution. It was not immediately clear on Wednesday if prosecutors may seek to have Garcia repay any portion of his salary as part of any judgment, although Fitzpatrick previously said his office may pursue that.
Fitzpatrick previously said that the charges alleged Garcia falsified entries on his resume by claiming he graduated from a university in Mexico and had held the title "chief of staff" at the U.S. State Department.
"He actually attended that university in Mexico but he never graduated," Fitzpatrick had said. At the State Department, Garcia "was basically just a grunt."
Garcia, 44, could not be be reached for comment Wednesday. He had been a senior vice president and chief of staff at Upstate Medical University since his appointment in March 2017.
Upstate Medical University placed Garcia on leave on the day the Times Union's story was published in May 2018. The university's former president, Danielle Laraque-arena, had issued a statement that day characterizing the accusations against Garcia as "troubling." He resigned the following day.