A former Obama staff member and his liberal news anchor wife are living high on the hog in their lavish Manhattan residence valued at $2 million. But they’re about to go through some hard times since the husband got caught playing handsies in a cookie jar not intended for him. So the happy couple is gonna have to split up for a while.
Seth Andrew, the Obama administration’s former education advisor, will be relocating. His new accommodations won’t be nearly as plush and it’s been rumored that the doormen can be obnoxious ogres at times. Andrew, 42, was dragged out of his palace in cuffs for allegedly scheming to rip off a public charter school network, which he founded, to the tune of $218,005 and some change.
Andrew, and his CBS News anchor wife, Lana Zak, got in over their heads and needed the cash to maintain the lower interest rate on their existing mortgage before the loan ballooned. Zak had nothing to do with the scheme and has not been charged.
The only way to keep the low rate was by maintaining a particular minimum personal or business bank account balance which his personal account was shy of, and he didn’t have a business account. So a light bulb came on. As the founder of Democracy Prep Public Schools, Andrew had full access to some of the organizations’ accounts. See where this is going?
Federal investigators discovered that over half of the organizations’ funds had been transferred to Andrew’s personal account to give the appearance of being worth more than he, or even as a couple, they are. It’s difficult to believe Zak is naive enough to not have known so we’ll keep an eye on her as this further unfolds.
Andrew broke ties with Democracy Prep in 2017, but not before he copied what he needed, for down the road. He patiently waited until 2019, when with a hardy yo-ho-ho he plundered the very escrow accounts he had personally set up for individual schools within the network.
He thought he was using his noggin’ by not transferring the money into his personal account. His devious scheme consisted of transferring all of the individual school’s escrow money into a newly created bogus account under the name of just one of the schools. Of course, that school would have no knowledge of the account, so boom, he could keep living well.
The Feds even caught him doing the dirty deed on camera thanks to a bank video where he is seen closing one of the individual escrow accounts. The video shows Andrew sporting a bright yellow ball cap, which oddly enough is significant. The FBI report makes note of how the hat “is essentially Andrew’s ‘calling card.’” It denotes his ties with Democracy Prep so he wore it to present a more believable presence at the bank.
Rightfully so, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is in charge of this shindig, is expected to throw the book at him. So fr Andrew has been charged with wire fraud, money laundering, making false statements to a financial institution, and they’re still hunting for more.
The current charges alone could put the guy away for 30 years. But due to federal sentencing guidelines, it’s doubtful he’ll be sentenced to anything close to that. Keep in mind, he won’t be treated like us ordinary thugs. He’s special.
Be this as it may, U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said, “Seth Andrew abused his position as a founder of a charter school network to steal from the very same schools he helped create. Andrew is not only alleged to have stolen the schools’ money but also to have used the stolen funds to obtain savings on a mortgage for a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment.” Strauss means business, so regardless of the guidelines, Andrew may be going down for longer than he thinks.
His blushing bride is obviously in search of new living arrangements in a more heathenistic neighborhood far below the standards she’s become illegally accustomed to. Any tears out there in reader-land? Didn’t think so.
