A federal court judge has upheld New York Universitys decision to deny an MBA degree to a CPA who neglected to tell the graduate business school about his conviction on insider trading charges.
Former PricewaterhouseCoopers employee Ayal Rosenthal pleaded guilty in February 2007 to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud after he was accused of disclosing confidential information to his brother about a 2005 transaction between two public companies. The conviction came only three months after he finished taking the necessary classes to earn his masters degree in business administration, according to
However, he did not disclose the charges against him, his guilty plea, or his jail term to NYUs Stern School of Business. Once the faculty found out about his conviction, a committee voted to withhold the MBA from him and to alter his grade to F in his professional responsibility course, where he had been a teaching assistant. He sued the Stern faculty in 2008, but U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan upheld the decision on Monday. He noted that the facultys decision was fully within the facultys power and discretion.
Rosenthal managed to complete his course requirements only by concealing his criminal investigation from Stern, Kaplan wrote, according to