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MARLBORO â The chairman of the board of the Marlboro School of Music, which for more than 70 years has hosted the Marlboro Music Festival on Potash Hill, is asking a local judge to establish an escrow account to hold its lease payments until ownership of the former Marlboro College campus can be established.
â[Democracy Builders Fund] has advised me that it believes it is the current owner of the Campus, and Type 1 [Civilization Academy Marlboro Campus LLC] has advised me that it does not recognize DBF as the current owner of the Campus,â wrote Christopher Serkin in documents filed with Windham Superior Court on May 12.
With federal charges against Andrew and questions of ownership, Degrees of Freedom and Marlboro Music Festival still plan to open
by C.B. Hall, Vermont Business Magazine Last week, residents of Marlboro, in the hills of Windham County, got big news – twice. On April 27, the US Attorney s Office for the Southern District of New York filed a criminal complaint against Seth Andrew, the motivating force behind Democracy Builders Fund, which purchased the campus of the defunct Marlboro College last July. On April 30, Degrees of Freedom, an innovative but non-accredited educational institution and a DBF project, announced it was delaying launch of its operations on the 533-acre campus.
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MARLBORO â Degrees of Freedom, which hoped to welcome hundreds of students to Marlboro starting this fall, is delaying its opening.
âWe are taking a step back,â said Chandell Stone, CEO and co-founder of Degrees of Freedom. âWeâre getting the lay of the land, seeing what needs to be done to make sure this project is viable. We hope to right this ship and we are hoping that people can give us the time and space to do that.â
Co-founder Seth Andrew was arrested Tuesday morning and cited with wire fraud, money laundering and providing false information to a financial institution.
Former Bridge International Academies director charged with theft of school funds
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Seth Andrew, who was also a senior advisor in the federal Office of Educational Technology under President Barack Obama, has been accused of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements to a financial institution. Seth is alleged to have wrongfully acquired more than Ksh. 21.6 million ($200,000) from his school so that he could get a better deal on an apartment.
Andrew is also the former Global Director of policy and partnerships at Bridge International Academies which also operates in Kenya.
“As alleged, Seth Andrew abused his position as a founder of a charter school network to steal from the very same schools he helped create,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss in a statement.
Ex-White House Adviser Charged With Stealing From Charter Schools
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Seth Andrew, a former White House adviser and Department of Education official under President Barack Obama, was arrested Tuesday and charged with wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements to a financial institution, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
Andrew is accused of stealing $218,005 from the national charter school network he founded, according to the announcement. He allegedly used more than half of the stolen money from the network of public charter schools to secure a better interest rate on a mortgage for a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment.
“The money he took belonged to an institution serving school-aged children,” William F. Sweeney Jr., Federal Bureau of Investigation assistant director, said in the Justice Department s press release. “Today Andrew himself is learning one of life’s most basic lessons what doesn’t belong to you is not yours for the takin