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Saturday, March 25, 2006

Bear with me.
Big news day.

Professor Barry Landreth, on the faculty of the University Southern California, teaches Fundamentals of Real Estate Development.

For Landreth, real estate development really is fundamental: You draw your unwitting students into a scheme that involves getting their parents to give you hundreds of thousands of dollars which you say you’re investing in real estate but which you put in your personal account to pay for a $73,000 Cadillac Escalade, a stable of show horses, and a house in Coto de Caza, a luxury gated community. (“Coto de Caza,” or “Preserve of the Hunt,” describes both Landreth’s neighborhood and his classroom.)

Here’s Barry.











He’s the one in the middle.


Here’s the bare bones Reuters take on the story:

A business professor at the University of Southern California was arrested on Friday by the FBI on charges of swindling students and others in a real estate fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Barry Landreth, who had taught real estate finance and development at the university, stole at least $1.5 million in the first 10 months of 2005, telling students and other investors he would buy land in Chicago and Las Vegas and then sell it for large profits, an FBI affidavit said.

Instead, he transferred all the money into his personal account without buying the land, the FBI said.

Landreth was arrested at his home, where he kept a stable of show horses.

The university said in a statement Landreth had worked part-time at the school. Most recently, he taught a course in the Marshall School of Business and was currently on administrative leave.



The LA Times has those lifestyle details, plus the fact that Landreth is a USC grad. He “has been placed on administrative leave, said James Grant, a USC spokesman.”



The brilliance of this scheme (before it went awry) was Landreth landing an academic job and being perceived as a professor. People think professors are more moral than other people. I’m not sure why. Classics departments may produce more paragons than the population at large. Beware the business schools.
Posted at: 3/25/2006 04:01:00 PM