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Monday, March 14, 2005

' Ex-Chancellor Admits To Using Donations To Fund Wedding

Gregory O'Brien Used Money To Pay For Daughter's Receptions




BATON ROUGE, La. -- Former University of New Orleans Chancellor Gregory O'Brien has admitted to using nearly $50,000 in donations to the school to help pay for his daughters' wedding receptions.

A deal approved by the state ethics board and signed by O'Brien concluded that the former chancellor broke an ethics law that is designed to prevent public officials from receiving gifts or other compensation from outside sources under most circumstances.

The settlement did not include any sort of monetary penalty.

According to the settlement, O'Brien and two UNO foundations believed it was proper for money from one group to pay for some wedding expenses, saying important university donors needed to be invited to the functions.

O'Brien spent $18,000 and $28,000 of foundation money to pay for the expenses associated with "university-related" guests at two weddings in 2001 and 2002.

The Ethics Board concluded that in order to comply with provisions of the law that allow foundations to pay for certain expenses of university officials, the Louisiana State University board should have signed off on these kind of transactions.

O'Brien made a payment of $65,000 to the UNO Foundation in October 2003, before the ethics board started its investigation. '




This is a real Miss Manners puzzler. How much of other people's money should one pay out for guests to come to one's daughters' wedding receptions? If we're only talking about a few "important university donors," this looks like an all-expenses paid trip and then some. Yet what would the expenses have been?

UD doubts many UNO donors live outside Louisiana, so we're not talking about airline tickets... Did the ex-chancellor pay for their cutaways? Did he pay for the gifts they gave the couple?

No, UD suspects the simple explanation is that Chancellor O'Brien had to bribe a good number of his guests to get in their cars and drive over to his daughters' wedding receptions. Which is sad.
Posted at: 3/14/2005 06:13:00 PM