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Former Harvard professor convicted of stealing $600,000 from a Hong Kong jewelry magnate

BOSTON (Reuters) - A former Harvard lecturer was convicted by a Boston jury of stealing more than $600,000 from a couple in Hong Kong, after they paid him more than $2 million to help get their sons accepted into Ivy League schools.

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Mark Zimny, who taught sociology at Harvard more than 10 years ago, was convicted of 13 counts of fraud in U.S. federal court. He was released on $100,000 bail and is due for sentencing on July 9, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts said in a release issued Thursday.

Mark Zimny
Mark Zimny, an ex-Harvard lecturer and consultant, was found guilty of 13 counts of fraud after telling a wealthy Hong Kong family he could get their sons into Harvard. Zimny looks on during an interview in Hong Kong November 5, 2012. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

While running a Cambridge-based company called IvyAdmit, Zimny persuaded Hong Kong jewelry magnate Gerald Chow and his wife Lily to pay him a $2 million retainer for educational consulting in 2008. He later convinced the couple that elite schools would accept their two sons if they made generous donations, and the couple gave Zimny about $650,000.

"Rather than delivering the funds to the schools as he promised, however, Zimny embezzled the funds for his own purposes," the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Albert S. Watkins, Zimny’s attorney, said he disputed the conviction, and plans to file a motion to interview the case’s jurors after finding a blog post about the case written by an anonymous author claiming to have been on the jury.

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"We are very concerned about what appears to be jury misconduct," said Watkins, adding that such misconduct, if proven, could lead to a mistrial.

The Chows have also filed a civil suit to recover the more than $2 million they say they paid to Zimny.

Zimny, who now lives in California, was found not guilty by the Boston jury on a 14th count, of fraud against a Massachusetts bank.

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2015. Follow Reuters on Twitter.
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