By 2017, 55-year-old Chika Nwankpa, the head of the Electrical Engineering Department at Drexel University in Philadelphia, had acquired, during his 27-year career, $10 million in federal research grants.
In October 2017, auditors at Drexel University discovered that since 2007, Professor Nwankpa had misappropriated $185,000 in grant money provided by the U. S. Navy, the Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation. During this ten-year period, the professor had allegedly spent $96,000 of grant money at strip clubs and sports bars. He also stood accused of spending federal grand funds on iTune purchases and meals at expensive restaurants.
In January 2020, a prosecutor with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, charged Chika Nwankpa with several counts of unlawful taking and theft by deception. Following the charges, Nwankpa resigned from the university and agreed to return $53,328 of the grant money.
Following his arrest, Chika Nwankpa posted his $25,000 bond and was released from jail. He could be sentenced up to a maximum of 14 years in prison. Since Larry Krasner, the district attorney of Philadelphia, is a prosecutor well known for going easy on criminals, one can reasonably predict a plea bargain with no prison time for Mr. Nwankpa. (If I were Mr. Nwankpa's attorney, I'd argue that what my client did is no different than what politicians do every day.)
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