The College Case

In early December 2018, Jeet Thakur Sahai visited his uncle Prof. Gyan Prakash Sahai at the San Jose College of Science and Commerce in San Jose, U.S.A. His trip was for two weeks. Prof. Sahai was a Sociology Professor at the college. Jeet was very glad to see his uncle as it had been six years since they last met.

However, Prof. Sahai was not happy with some recent developments there. He mentioned that there was a large research project sanctioned by the US Government, which he was a part of. The Chairperson of that project at the College was Prof. Bill Rankins. He suspected that Prof. Rankins did some wrongdoing as out of the $400,000 sanctioned to Prof. Sahai, he only received $239,000. He did not receive the remaining $161,000 and was very concerned as how we would achieve the deliverables for the project, report on them, etc. Jeet asked Prof. Sahai whether he would like to contact the police, but Prof. Sahai was hesitant for now. He told Jeet that if he had some evidence, then he would contact the police in San Jose to investigate further.

Jeet had a plan and he told Prof. Sahai about it. Prof. Sahai agreed and mentioned that Jeet could go ahead with it.

Jeet talked with a few people in San Jose (who were not affiliated with the college) and made up business cards of a California TV station. He requested an interview with Prof. Rankins and mentioned that he would need access to his books and records as they were doing a project on research studies and how their finances worked. They mentioned to Prof. Rankins that they believed was an excellent administrator and that he would have great sociological knowledge and a high level of ethics.

Jeet and the team went to meet Prof. Rankins as per an appointment.

Jeet: “Prof. Rankins, thank you for meeting us. Our TV show thinks you are a very able administrator and by looking at your project and practices, we will be able to see how things should be run.”

Prof. Rankins: “Mr. Jeet, how can I help you? I would be more than happy to answer questions.”

Jeet: “Yes, we will have questions for you at a subsequent interview. If it is alright with you, we would like to look at the major project’s books and records. The $1.2 million one you received from the US Government for the sociology project. That will help us.”

Prof. Rankins: “OK, I will arrange for that. Tomorrow come with your team and you use one of the classrooms to go over the books and records.”

Prof. Rankins was so sure of himself that no one would be able to find any wrongdoing, so he acted ‘normal’ in front of Jeet and the team. If he would have been nervous, Jeet would have been suspicious.

The next day Jeet and the team came and in a classroom started looking over the books and records.

Jeet found in the main project binder, that allocations to individuals and their sub-projects were on pages 11 and 12. On page 12, it had Prof. Sahai listed with $239,000. Jeet remembered Prof. Sahai telling him the correct amount was $400,000. All the 37 pages of this binder used Calibri font 12 except page 12. In a hurry when Prof. Rankins switched pages he forgot to check the font size. Jeet took a few pictures of several pages of the binder as well as page 12 in his cell phone.

One of the team members, Gil, asked Jeet to look at the expense report book. Jeet thanked Gil and mentioned he was going to. Jeet looked at the expense report book in a lot of detail. He found under contractors/subcontractors there were 11 invoices totaling $184,677.42. All these invoices were for payment to a contractor listed as ‘Ms. Helen Framie, Social Analyst, Rigabie Consultants, Denton, Texas.’ He thought that these invoices were suspicious, so he took photos of each in his phone. He searched the internet and found that Rigabie Consultants were at a P.O. Box Address in Denton, Texas and the contact email address for Ms. Framie was [email protected] and not a business email (such as [email protected] ). He noted this information. He and his team members later thanked Prof. Rankins and told him they would return in two days for an final interview.

That evening Jeet showed all the evidence he had to Prof. Sahai. They both then when to San Jose police and asked them to start an investigation. The San Police did started an investigation. They later found out that Prof. Rankins had falsified documents to show a smaller allocation to Prof. Sahai. He also made fictitious invoices for Rigabie Consultants and then made 11 payments to them worth more than $184,000. This amount included the $161,000 that should have gone to Prof. Sahai for his research. It turned out that Rigabie Consultants was a fake company, headed by Larissa M. Raifeil. Larissa was married to Prof. Rankins. The police arrested Prof. Rankins and Larissa Raifeil and their court case would start in a few weeks. They thanked Jeet for obtaining evidence that proved vital for their investigation.

Prof. Sahai thanked Jeet as well. He said that he was glad to help out and that he had a nice time with him and his family in San Jose. The next day Jeet took a flight to Delhi from San Jose as he had to resume his job with the Delhi Police.