A former Connecticut College employee charged with embezzling $170,000 from the College will serve 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release, according to a press release from the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
Michael Kmec, the College’s former Director of Auxiliary Services, pleaded guilty last November to one count of wire fraud. Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Kmec “devised and intended to devise a scheme to defraud the College and students of the College, to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises.”
According to a memorandum from U.S. Attorney John H. Durham and Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Cherry, Connecticut College officials fired Mr. Kmec in April 2018 after discovering some evidence of his schemes.
U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea sentenced Mr. Kmec on Wednesday, April 24, 2019, after repeated attempts by Mr. Kmec’s defense team to postpone sentencing. In January, lawyers argued that they needed more time to evaluate a doctor’s claim that Mr. Kmec’s prescription medication may have influenced his fraudulent behavior at the College. On two other occasions, Mr. Kmec’s attorney, Raymond M. Hasset, requested extensions due to being out of state.
Last month, Mr. Kmec’s lawyers filed an 18-page memorandum that asked Judge Shea to consider giving their client leniency because Mr. Kmec cooperated with law enforcement and what they claim are mental and family health issues. They requested Mr. Kmec recieve a sentence of “home confinement followed by supervised release.”
Prosecutors say they did not reject Mr. Kmec’s description of his mental health, but claim “Mr. Kmec’s mental illness and depression do not mitigate his theft of more than $170,000 nor warrant a guidelines departure…there is no evidence to suggest that his mental health condition propelled him to embezzle.”
In his 12 years at the College, Mr. Kmec rose up through staff ranks, eventually becoming Auxiliary Services director in 2014. That same year, the College nominated Mr. Kmec for a Connecticut Higher Education Community Service award. In 2017, College president Katherine Bergeron honored Mr. Kmec with the Presidential Staff Recognition “Inspiration” award.
Beginning with his promotion to Auxiliary Services director in 2014, Mr. Kmec combined a rising star reputation with intimate access to college accounts to cover up a myriad of embezzlement schemes.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Kmec defrauded the College of $157,495 through multiple illegal schemes. Mr. Kmec allegedly created a limited liability company called Decal Graphics of Connecticut LLC in 2016. Through fraudulent invoices and payments between the College and Decal Graphics, Mr. Kmec stole $100,576. In another scheme lasting between 2015 and 2018, Mr. Kmec fraudulently stole $24,872 through fraudulent invoices sent to a company called Connecticut Business systems.
He allegedly stole another $23,763 through various fraudulent reimbursement schemes involving “services or royalty payments.” Prosecutors also said that Mr. Kmec diverted $8,282 from the Camel Card office to his own accounts and misappropriated a laptop worth about $1,486.
Mr. Kmec also allegedly stole directly from students. Prosecutors said the College’s bookstore contractor, Follet Corporation, had issued checks containing “money that it owed to students who no longer had Follet accounts.” Mr. Kmec allegedly deposited about $14,029 from those checks into his own accounts.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information about Mr. Kmec’s sentencing becomes available.
