WICHITA, Kan. — A judge sentenced a former Pittsburg State University professor to 18 months in a federal prison Monday on convictions for wire fraud and money laundering related to his management of a graduate student exchange program.
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren assessed Michael Muoghalu the prison term at a sentencing hearing in federal court in Wichita and ordered him to pay the university $148,430 in restitution.
The former director of the business administration program at PSU managed a graduate student exchange program at the university that recruited Nigerian students interested in obtaining a master’s degree in business administration.
According to a federal grand jury indictment handed up in December of last year, Muoghalu and an unnamed associate in Nigeria defrauded the university between August 2006 and January 2014 by creating fictitious documents representing that certain Nigerian students had completed undergraduate work and were eligible for the program.