Former UCSF administrator gets 20 months for tuition theft

A judge sentenced a former UCSF administrator to 20 months in prison for stealing $1.5 million in tuition payments from the university, prosecutors said Thursday.

San Francisco resident Sandra Le, 55, was ordered to surrender on or before May 10 to serve her prison term and will be required to pay at least $1.5 million in restitution. Prosecutors said the exact amount Le owes will be determined at a further hearing. U.S. Northern District Judge William Orrick also ordered that Le be under supervised release for three years after she’s out of prison.

Le pleaded guilty in November to three counts of wire fraud for diverting tuition payments into her personal accounts while she was the academic program officer for the UCSF School of Nursing’s PostMaster’s and Special Studies Certificate Programs.

Le “abused her position by directing students in those programs to have their tuition checks made out to her, or to a merchandiser she purchased from, or to leave the checks’ payee line blank so she could then make out the checks to herself or her associates,” prosecutors said. “She then deposited the checks into her personal bank accounts, including joint bank accounts that she shared with associates, and used the funds to pay for luxury items from that merchandiser.”

Prosecutors said that Le also used the payments for gambling, home improvement and other expenses. She disguised her actions by falsifying payment records and student enrollment. In total, between November 2013 and March 2019, Le took nearly 300 checks, prosecutors said.

The investigation into Le’s conduct began in May 2019, and prosecutors said she took a leave of absence while under fire from UCSF’s Audit and Advisory Services Unit.