By Justin Muszynski
Associate Professor of English Ravi Shankar was arrested on September 17 on four charges, including fraud and attempting to tamper with physical evidence.
According to the arrest warrant, Shankar purchased over $20,000 worth of tickets to a soccer game in New Jersey with his Discover credit card and later claimed the charge was an unauthorized purchase. He faces two felony charges and two misdemeanors that include attempt to commit larceny in the first degree, two counts of false statement in the second degree and criminal attempt to tamper with or fabricate physical evidence.
Mark McLaughlin, the Associate Vice President of Marketing and Communications at CCSU, said Shankar was placed on paid administrative leave and will remain so until all his legal issues have been worked out. He could not comment on what would happen to Shankar’s teaching position should he be convicted of anything.
In the warrant, police say Shankar claimed that he had only purchased four tickets to the game totaling $342.40 and any other tickets on his credit card were unauthorized.
Then in a later interview with Detective Densil Samuda and Lt. Dercole of the CCSU police, Shankar admitted that he did in fact purchase all the tickets that were charged on his credit card in hoping the game would be a sell-out and he would make a profit, according to the warrant. The warrant also said that Shankar reported the purchase as fraudulent because he lost $30,000 in another investment in the stock market and that his credit card debt totaled over $70,000.
Allegedly, Shankar called the CCSU IT lab and asked them to erase his hard drives that were being stored there because the police advised him to do so. When Samuda received an email letting him know Shankar was attempting to get the hard drives erased, he responded by saying not to erase them and that no one from the CCSU police advised Shankar to do that.
This caused Samuda to believe that Shankar was trying to get them erased because they may have contained evidence crucial to the case, according to the warrant. He was able to attain two copies of Shankar’s stored hard drives from the IT lab and tagged them as evidence.
As far as what would happen to Shankar as a professor if he were convicted, Anne Alling the Chief Human Resources Officer at CCSU says that each case is different and a decision will have to be made in accordance with state regulations and the AAUP collective bargaining agreement.
“I can’t comment on this individual case as it is still pending,” said Alling, “but I can tell you that there is no cut and dry policy in place and a decision will have to be made which will ultimately have to go through the president of CCSU.”
Shankar has been released from custody on $25,000 bond that was paid in cash according to the State of Connecticut’s Judicial Branch website.
Shankar’s is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 25 at New Britain Superior Court.