NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION -?: page :o: A 01L 4201 WILSON BOULEVARD ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA 22230 I OFFICE OF I INSPECTOR GENERAL MEMORANDUM Date: March 26,1998 -- - ---- - - ! To: File No. I97080041 From: Investigations Section Through: Investigations Section 1 Re: Close out Our office received an allegation regarding Dr. investigator on NSF grant no. at New York. The complainant alleged at 1) the PI never portion of the complainant's salary was not paid from the research project, 3) might have taken funds out of the grant, moved it to another professor's account, and then paid himself from that account, andd-)4 his students were doing work that was published over tbenty years ago. We reviewed the program jacket and found a copy of the inviice from the subcontractor with a payment authorization for the NSF grant. The complainant has no documents to substantiate his allegations about the PI'S transfer 0 of funds to another professor's account. He did not provide NSF-OIG a basis for this allegation, but said that professor was The complainant was not involved with any financial aspects of the grant, and did not know if funds were used for non-grant related expenses or used illegally. He adrmtted that when he left, the project seemed to be running well. The complainant admitted rhat he did not like some of the ways the PI chose to spend the funds, and the two of them disagreed dn other project issues. The grant expenditure reports showed that the complainant was paid 5 months salary per year, plus travel, equipment, and other expenses. The other issues addressed by the complainant are program issues, therefore outside the purview of an OIG review. Our review of the program jacket and expenditure reports found no abnormal charges to the grant. These findings, along with the fact that the complainant was not involved with financial aspects of the grant, and when asked, said he didn't know if any funds were being used ilfegally, does not gtve us cause to pursue this matter. This case is closed.
Grant Fraud
Published by the National Science Foundation, Office of Inspector General on 1998-03-26.
Below is a raw (and likely hideous) rendition of the original report. (PDF)