RCC Board Members Begin to Question Valerie Roberson’s Sanity in the Wake of
Her Federal Financial Aid Violations Cover-up
Valerie Roberson, the RCC president had no clue that the government would
finally decide to withhold $800,000 for a variety of financial aid violations at RCC.
The fact is, these preliminary violations are only the tip of the iceberg: the Feds is
not even aware that dozens of checks were recently disbursed to RCC students
who never applied for and, therefore, are not eligible to receive these funds. Even
worse: among these students are an increasing number of international students
who had no business receiving federal moneys to fund their education.
A responsible leader would come clean and take full responsibility for these
violations, especially when she has full, first-hand knowledge of these violations;
but not Roberson. In fact, Valerie Roberson instinctively reverted to her usual
cover-up mode. To come up with a plan, she quickly gathered her infamous team
of four, including Roberson herself and her vice president of finance and
administration Kevin Hepner, known by the Board of Higher Education and by
local investigators for his past fraudulent activities at a local non-profit
organization. The other two include Cecile Regner, Roberson’s so-called mentor
(yeah, right!), and Lorita Williams who recently confided to one of our fellow
faculty that “the president was simply trying to help the minority folks by giving
all of these students a check.” How pitiful!
For the RCC board of trustees, however, this is no laughing matter: board
members, including chairman Gerald Chertavian understand well the implications
of Roberson’s decision to choose to commit fraud by covering-up these federal
financial aid violations and by her persistence not to report these violations to
BHE and to the federal government. One of two board members in particular
confided to us by phone during our last meeting at RCC that there are strong
indications that “chairman Gerald Chertavian is so fed up that he may soon resign
to prevent his name and reputation from being tarnished by Roberson’s and her
administration’s latest fraudulent and illegal activities.” “It is very discouraging”,
added the other frustrated board member as “Our chairman has invested so
much time, energy, and public relations in a vain attempt to make this
administration become a bit functional. Now this! No one can blame him from
leaving since he doesn’t want his name to be associated with this current
unnecessary garbage.” “Valerie Roberson’s decisions and actions are too erratic:
she would hire a crowd of vice presidents, administrators, and consultants and
then fire them all within just a few weeks for no apparent reasons. Her erratic
behavior is bordering insanity.”, stated the first board member. “Roberson may
not be mentally and emotionally fit to run the college and the board needs to look
into this”, concluded the other board member.