URBANA, Ill. (WAND) – A professor at the U of I is officially charged with stealing thousands of dollars from the university.
Mahomet man Wai-Tat Fu, 47, is accused of pocketing $16,000 from fraudulent and duplicate travel expenses submitted to the school. Police say the thefts happened between November of 2017 and September of 2018 after Fu traveled to conferences, some of which The News-Gazette reports were in Hong Kong, New Orleans and Los Angeles.
Fu, who is an associate professor of computer science at the U of I, is on administrative leave as the investigation continues. Results of a late 2018 internal audit went to police in January, and Fu faces an arraignment hearing in court in May 8.
Fu’s charges include theft over $10,000 (Class 2 felony) and official misconduct (Class 3 felony). If found guilty of theft, he could serve probation or between 3 and 7 years behind bars. The News-Gazette says wording of the official misconduct charge claims Fu tried “to obtain personal advantage for himself” when submitting the false expenses while acting as a professor.
The suspect works in graphics, visualization and human-computer interaction as part of the computer science department at the school, according to the U of I website.
