The general manager of Sheraton University City Hotel was sentenced to five years in federal prison for deceiving University of Pennsylvania for over $3 million from fraudulent invoices.
Investigations reveal the executive man Kenneth Kapikian has been submitting deceitful receipts for over seven years since May 2008 charging the University for services that it did not provide. The general manager also urged other hotel vendors to inflate their invoices and hand over any extra funds to him as kickbacks.
In addition to his sentence, the 58-year-old line man will have to pay the $3,039,383.51 that he stole from the Ivy League school. He was convicted of six counts of wire fraud last June and one count of conspiracy for the shady business he schemed with the Sheraton Hotel's chief engineer named Dennis Gagliardi.
Kapikian and Gagliardi also founded a company Cold Wash Zone, LLC, back in 2006 that installed laundry machines in hotels. It was also revealed that they charged the school for unfounded services which often reached millions in addition to the hundreds of thousands they collected as part of the kickbacks from other hotel vendors.
Gagliardi has also pleaded guilty like his fellow conspirator and is expected to be sentenced next month. He will have three years of supervised release when his prison sentence is completed. The case was handled by Homeland Security Investigations and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Melanie Babb Wilmoth.
It was divulged that several other hotel contractors were also charged as part of the conspiracy. The University released a statement in regard to the situation that says "no Penn employees were named in the charges or implicated in the alleged criminal conduct in any way" and that University of Pennsylvania would "vigorously pursue recovery of all losses that have been incurred by the hotel."
The Sheraton Hotel which is located at 3549 Chestnut St. is owned by the subsidiary of the University. Kapikian got the contracted position as general manager through the management company Meyer Jabara Hotels LLC.
