Former University of California employee Moises Torres turned himself in Monday in response to a warrant alleging that he violated California Penal Code Section 508 (embezzlement). Torres resigned from his position as executive director of the UC College Prep online initiative earlier this month.

Investigators allege that Torres padded contracts with an Arizona-based software vendor and personally received a payment of approximately $200,000 in December through a subcontracting scheme. He worked at UCCP for 3 1/2 years and served as executive director for seven months prior to his resignation.

The investigation is ongoing to determine whether other fund losses have occurred.

UCCP is a statewide initiative that helps students advance toward college or a career through online courses, tutoring, and other college-prep resources. UCCP is a UC Office of the President program, based at the Santa Cruz campus.

In addition to the criminal probe, the university's investigation is also reviewing current oversight mechanisms in order to strengthen them. "We will do everything necessary to ensure this doesn't happen again," said Daniel Greenstein, UC's Associate Vice Provost for Scholarly Information.

Greenstein, who assumed responsibility for UCCP’s operation in August 2006, said a number of corrective actions are already under way to address the issues raised during the investigation. Those actions include:

-- Clarifying the scope of decision-making authority for the UCCP program, including what decisions can and cannot be made solely by the director;

-- Strengthening budgetary oversight and adding accounting controls to better ensure that program expenditures are appropriate;

-- Integrating UCCP more closely with other student academic preparation programs managed by UCOP.

UCSC Audit Director Geri Gail said the campus has also strengthened its contract review process. In particular, she said the investigation revealed that technology-oriented contracts can be challenging for purchasing agents to analyze—especially if they are "sole source" contracts that may not require competitive bidding.

"It can be difficult for purchasing staff to determine whether the product is specialized enough to make it exempt from bidding requirements," Gail said. To address this issue, UCSC's purchasing staff will now take the extra step of having the campus's Information Technology staff scrutinize such contracts, she said.

Gail and UCSC police have worked on the criminal investigation in conjunction with the Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office. She said the campus's Whistleblower Program produced the tip that led them and UCSC police to launch an investigation into possible wrongdoing.

The investigation is also expected to determine how much of the misappropriated money can be recovered.

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