Traveling Miles

Professor, wife accused of defrauding NASA

Fox News is now reporting University of Florida professor Saamim Anghaie and his wife have been accused of defrauding NASA of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars:

"Iranian-born Samim Anghaie, 59, is the Director of the Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute at the University of Florida. His wife, 55-year-old Sousan Anghaie, is president of New Era Technology Inc. (NETECH) in Gainesville, Fla.

Authorities say Sousan Anghaie persuaded NASA to award her company "several fully funded contracts," including nearly $600,000 to develop and study a uranium-related technology.

But, according to an affidavit unsealed today in federal court, the couple allegedly used most of that money to buy personal luxuries — including their $480,000 home in Gainesville, a 2007 BMW and a 2005 Toyota Sienna sports van.

They also used that money to buy a property for their son in Tampa, Fla., a property for their other son in Manchester, Conn., a 2008 Toyota Corolla for Sousan Anghaie's sister, and a 2007 Toyota Corolla for another family member."

ABC: FBI Raids University of Florida Nuclear Institute

This is the article I wrote for ABC News earlier today:

The University of Florida’s Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute was raided by FBI agents and officials from the office of NASA’s inspector general Wednesday morning. Agents spent several hours searching the institute and the office of the institute’s director, Samim Anghaie.

Law enforcement officials told ABC News the investigation involved a criminal matter that had nothing to do with terrorism, technology transfer or espionage.

“We did have federal agents on campus and we have been fully cooperating with federal officials on their inquiry,” said University of Florida spokesman Steve Orlando.

No arrest warrants have been issued.

“When you throw together all those elements, words like ‘Iranian’ and ‘nuclear’ and ‘FBI,’ people get kind of worked up about it,” Orlando said. “I don’t think it’s nearly as sexy as people would guess from all those elements.”

Students who arrived to Anghaie’s Wednesday morning class were greeted with a message written on the classroom chalk board reading: “Class Canceled.”

One student, who did not want to be identified because of the close-knit nature of the university's nuclear community, reported seeing agents putting items in boxes. He said he and his peers were shocked to learn of the investigation.

“He is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met,” the student said.

Anghaie, who was born in Iran, has been employed by the University of Florida since October 1980. He has been placed on administrative leave with pay, which is consistent with university policy.

Click here for the original article.

So much for the Rock, Paper, Scissors story...

...the deck ate the tape!

The Case Against Homework

Check out this week's 'Assignment America' from the CBS Evening News... I think I'm going to pass along this story to all of my former teachers...

And the winner is...

Keri Lyttle! She got bombarded by the press afterwards...

Skulls & Knuckles

Some people take this pretty seriously...

From the RPS Tournament...

About 50 people have registered to play in tonight's Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament...

Rock, paper, scissors... shoot!

I'm shooting a story with Josh Wucher tonight on the annual Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament at the University of Florida. The tournament starts at 7 p.m. Reminds me of this Super Bowl ad from a year or two ago...

You can bet I'll be blogging and twittering throughout tonight's event!

Security Breach @ UF

Nearly 100,000 people's private information may have been accessed after a computer breach at the University of Florida. The "Grove" computer system, as it's known, was one of the first e-mail and website hosting services used by the university. Officials say names and social security numbers of students and faculty members who have used the system since 1996 may have been available to the intruder. The incident happened last month but officials just began notifying those who may have been affected this week.

Kate Tuckwood-Taylor, WUFT's 5:30 producer yesterday, told me about it right before it was my turn to pitch on ABC's morning conference call. New York loved the story and wanted us to get on it. Patrick and I started getting MOS early in the afternoon and also spoke to a UF official.

We came back to the bureau to dump the video onto one of our editing laptops when I got a text from Chris Martinez, a reporter with WFTS -- the ABC affiliate -- in Tampa. I interned at the station in high school. They were doing the story as well and wanted to know if we had anything they could use. I told him what we had and called ABC in New York. We arranged to feed New York the video to put on NewsOne, their affiliate service, which would send the video down to Tampa. Here's the piece they ran last night on their 11 p.m. newscast.

According to the police report, investigators have traced the IP address of the intruder to the caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda. Police are not actively investigating the incident, though. Instead the computer system has been retired and officials are now concentrating their efforts on notifying the 97-thousand people whose information was at risk.

WUFT: Search for Haleigh Cummings Expanded (2/13)

This is the piece I filed for Friday's newscast: