By Justin Muszynski
After pleading no contest Monday to providing a false statement, an associate professor of English at CCSU is expected to continue his teaching position at the school, according to a university spokesperson.
Ravi Shankar was sentenced to one year suspended with two years of probation, but says the only reason he accepted the plea deal the state offered was to “primarily stop this roller coaster.”
“He will continue to be employed here,” said Mark McLaughlin, associate vice president of marketing and communications at CCSU.
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 charges were unauthorized purchases.
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, but in a later interview with CCSU police, he admitted that he did in fact purchase all the tickets that were charged on his credit card in hoping to make a profit. 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.
In an email, Shankar said when he purchased the tickets his card was mistakenly charged multiple times totaling almost $20,000 within an hour.
“I didn’t realize that these charges had been made as I received no email confirmation, nor was my account flagged for suspicious activity or shut down until the charges were legitimized,” Shankar said in an email correspondence. “I only found out about them when the tickets began arriving at my house.”
He then says he contacted Ticketmaster who told him the tickets were non-refundable and that he should take any dispute up with the credit card company.
From there, Shankar says the credit card company apologized to him for the glitch, but informed him he would have to abide by Ticketmaster’s return policy.
“I never intended to order all those tickets and there is no conceivable way that they should all have been allowed to go through,” Shankar said.
He also says he unsuccessfully attempted to sell the tickets to make up for the charges and ultimately took a huge loss.
“Finally, clouded by anger, frustration and outrage, I did claim them as fraud,” he said.
During his case, Shankar applied for a supervised diversionary program citing a psychiatric disability. And as part of the special conditions of probation, he must partake in mental health treatment which includes taking any medication that is prescribed and continuing mental health counseling as frequently as deemed necessary. He is also only allowed to operate a motor-vehicle for work purposes.
He was also charged in May with driving under the influence of alcohol after he allegedly struck another car in the rear back in November. He received six months suspended and 18 months of probation for that charge.
He says he is planning to file a civil suit against the credit card company Discover because of the multiple charges that were made on his card.
It is unclear when Shankar will resume his teaching responsibilities at CCSU.
“I’m glad that these matters have been resolved and look forward to moving forward at CCSU and in my own life,” Shankar said.