Supreme Court won’t review the fraud conviction of former dean of Temple business school
Moshe Porat was convicted of fraud in 2021 following a school rankings scandal, and sentenced the following year to 14 months in federal prison.
The United States Supreme Court will not review the conviction of Temple University’s business school former dean who was found guilty of federal wire fraud following a rankings scandal.
The court’s denial of the petition for review filed by Moshe Porat, who led the Fox School of Business from 1996 to 2018, marks an end to his criminal case.
Porat, 78, continued to maintain his innocence following the Monday decision from the Supreme Court, saying that he was wrongly blamed for the misdeeds of a subordinate.
“I worked my entire professional career to ensure that the Fox education was excellent,” Porat said. “The Fox school programs were well respected and provided outstanding education before and after this unfortunate chapter.”
In his January 2024 petition to the Supreme Court, Porat said that his fraud conviction shouldn’t stand because the victims of the rankings scheme didn’t suffer economic harm.
“Porat argued that he was not guilty as a matter of law because students received exactly what they paid for — a high-quality education and a degree," the petition said.
The Third Circuit Court ruled that Porat’s scheme did inflict financial harm on students, because rankings went into the “economic calculus” when choosing a school.
Other circuits, in other cases, handed down rulings both agreeing and disagreeing in line with the argument that fraud required economic harm. This kind of “circuit split” makes a case ripe for Supreme Court review.
But unfortunately for the disgraced dean, the Supreme Court last month unanimously upheld the fraud conviction of Stamatios Kousisis, who lied about fulfilling diversity requirements to obtain Schuylkill bridge and 30th Street Station repair contracts from PennDot.
Kousisis argued that his conviction should be vacated because the projects were completed, and the government didn’t suffer economic harm.
Porat submitted a “friend of the court” brief in the Kousisis case, tying his destiny to that of the PennDot contractor. In the brief, Porat said that the question before the court is “virtually identical” to the question raised from his case — whether fraud can be charged even when there is no economic harm for the victims.
“Consequently, if this Court rules that the answer is no, Porat’s conviction would have to be reversed,” the support brief said.
The Supreme Court did not agree with that analysis.
“In short, the wire fraud statute is agnostic about economic loss. The statute does not so much as mention loss, let alone require it,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority opinion.
» READ MORE: A unanimous Supreme Court upheld the fraud conviction of a man who lied to get PennDot contracts
Porat was forced from his post as dean of the business school in 2018 following allegations that he misrepresented data to U.S. News & World Report to elevate Temple’s online MBA to the top spot in national business school rankings.
A federal jury found him guilty of federal conspiracy and wire fraud charges in 2021. Porat was sentenced to 14 months in prison the following year.
At sentencing, Porat didn’t apologize or acknowledge that his crimes harmed students.
“He still doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He has never accepted any responsibility,” U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert said during the hearing. “He blames everyone else.”
Porat served his sentence and was released from federal prison in August 2024, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records.