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Ex-Dean of St. John’s Dies; Investigated as Suicide Ex-Dean at University, on Trial for Stealing Over $1 Million, Is Found Dead at Home
(about 1 hour later)
A former dean of St. John’s University who had been accused of stealing more than $1 million from the school was found dead in her home on Tuesday morning. The death is being investigated as a suicide. Hers was the kind of rise through the academic ranks that could have epitomized the American dream, if not for the way she crashed. Fresh from Taiwan in 1975, she enrolled at St. John’s University as a student in Asian studies, becoming a dean in just five years and, soon after, winning the ear of the university’s top echelon as she raised more than $20 million for the school.
The death of the dean, Cecilia Chang, who lived in Jamaica Estates, Queens, was announced by the judge presiding over her trial. It was unclear how Dr. Chang died or who found her. But the dean, Cecilia Chang, fought her way up driven by the same ambition and greed that would pull her down, accused of stealing more than $1 million from the school and using foreign scholarship students as her personal servants, prosecutors said during a three-week trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
Dr. Chang’s death comes in the midst of her trial, in which in addition to being accused of stealing money from St. John’s, she was also accused of using students as her personal servants. Hours after Dr. Chang took the stand in a desperate attempt to try to explain her actions, she was found dead in her multimillion-dollar home in Queens, one of the prizes of her swift ascent. Investigators said they believed she had committed suicide.
At the federal courthouse in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning, a prosecutor told the judge presiding over Dr. Chang’s trial that a body had been found inside her home. But the judge, Sterling Johnson Jr., said he would keep the jury in place until he received official confirmation that Dr. Chang was dead. Her lawyers had tried to reach Dr. Chang on Tuesday, and when they could not they called her son and suggested he call the police. He did, and officers entered the home and discovered her body.
But Judge Johnson did speak briefly of Dr. Chang’s death, saying: “That could be one of the reasons that she wanted to testify. Sayonara. Get it off her chest. We never know how an individual handles the pressure. She admitted everything on the stand.” The beginning of the end came in 2010, when Dr. Chang was arrested and charged in the case. Prosecutors said she had used her position to recruit students to the school, promising them scholarships but threatening to kick them out if they did not perform her household chores, including washing her underwear by hand.
Dr. Chang’s body was apparently discovered by the police after her son had been unable to reach his mother by telephone, officials said. They said she had created bank accounts in the students’ names, shuffling tens of thousands of dollars of money around that would end up in her pocket.
On Monday, Dr. Chang had taken the stand in her own defense in an effort to rebut the prosecution’s presentation that depicted her as a thief who was fueled by greed. The government assembled a case so strong that Dr. Chang’s lawyers could hardly offer a defense in opening statements. She had taken the money, her lawyer said, but it was owed to her. The students had performed her chores, but not under duress.
Dr. Chang acknowledged that she had used school money to pay for her son’s graduate school and had made students hand-wash her underwear. Prosecutors called students and university officials to the stand, who piled mounds of incriminating evidence atop Dr. Chang. Dr. Chang took the stand in her own defense, against the advice of her lawyers, and her testimony was the only defense evidence offered before her death. The presiding judge in the case, Sterling Johnson Jr., declared a mistrial after her death was confirmed.
Dr. Chang, who led the Institute of Asian Studies at St. John’s and served as its vice president for international relations, was accused of using her position to recruit scholarship students from overseas, promising them a free education, but then forcing them to clean her house and shuttle cases of liquor to her room at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut. The case was a reminder that often trials are often where human drama plays out writ small. A courtroom tends to be an orderly, civilized place where jurors hear testimony about things that happened in the past. But beyond the metal detectors and the security guards, life can be much more grisly.
She had faced up to 20 years in prison on the most serious charge against her, forced labor. The disconnect can be stark. Dr. Chang’s defense lawyers, whose acrimony toward their client was well known, were seen at one point laughing in the courtroom on Tuesday as everyone tried to figure out what would happen to the case.
Prosecutors presented considerable evidence against Dr. Chang. Documents and e-mails from the university showed hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal items, including repairs for her Mercedes-Benz car, that had been charged to a university credit card. And a series of former students testified about the menial labor they performed for her and the threats of lost scholarships they faced if they balked. They later released a statement.
“Cecilia Chang dedicated 30 years of her life to St. John’s University,” it said. “She was a prolific fund-raiser and tireless advocate for her beloved Asian Studies Program at the University. Her death today is a sad ending to a complex human drama.”
Dominic Scianna, a spokesman for the University, said, “St. John’s University was saddened to learn this morning of the death of Cecilia Chang. We ask the entire St. John’s community to pray for her and her family.”
Separately, the presiding judge, Sterling Johnson Jr., known for filling his sixth floor courtroom with levity, did not scale back when the news turned grim.
“Sayonara,” Judge Johnson said, adding that Dr. Chang had gotten everything off her chest in the previous day’s testimony. “We never know how an individual handles the pressure.” He called the turn of events a “Shakespearean tragedy.”
At one point the prosecutors hugged each other and the investigators who had built the case.
As the drama unfolded in the courtroom, Dr. Chang’s son, Steven, the subject of much courtroom testimony about the chores his mother’s students had performed for him, was outside of his mother’s house being prevented from entering by the police.
The court was waiting to hear from the police about whether the son had seen the body yet. Had the son seen the body? The judge was satisfied that she had killed herself after the police said they had shown a photo of Dr. Chang to a neighbor who said it was her.
The judge did not immediately inform the jurors of what happened, keeping them in a separate room until the death was confirmed. The judge told the jurors in private, “Dr. Chang is no longer with us,” according to several jurors who were present at the conversation.
All said that came as a shock.
“My first thought was that she fled the country,” said Frank, a juror from Nassau County who did not want to give his last name.
“We’re shocked,” said Joan Bophy, from Staten Island. “And it’s a shame. She probably punished herself more than anybody would.”
They reflected on her testimony from the day before, searching for signs that might have provided clues about what was coming. Some said she did not look right and thought it strange that she had seemed to implicate herself in the previous day’s testimony.
“You could see she was stressed, really stressed,” said Ms. Bophy. “She was digging herself a deeper hole.”