Baruch College Basketball Coach Sentenced 3 Years After $1M+ Gym Rental Scheme Stealing Booking Fees

On June 21, 2018, Machli Joseph — a fourteen-year athletic department official at Baruch College in Manhattan, having served as men's basketball coach, women's basketball head coach, assistant athletic director, and associate athletic director for the City University of New York — was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in January 2018 to one count of conversion and misapplication of money from a federally funded program, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666, before U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty in the Southern District of New York. Between 2010 and 2016, Joseph used his exclusive control over Baruch College's gym rental scheduling to divert over $700,000 in payments intended for the college into bank accounts he personally controlled, some held under entity names deliberately designed to sound like official Baruch-affiliated organizations. The scheme was investigated by the Department of Education Office of the Inspector General and the New York State Inspector General's Office, whose head, Catherine Leahy Scott, noted the fraud went unchecked for years and was symptomatic of lax oversight throughout CUNY facilities. Joseph was ordered to forfeit $787,194 and pay the same amount in restitution. Among the personal expenses funded by the diverted payments were renovations to his private home in Elizabeth, New Jersey — paid for with checks that gym renters believed they were writing to a public college. - - Disclaimer: This video is a dramatization based on real events. Some visual content was created with artificial intelligence assistance. Some details have been fictionalized and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.