Former Obama White House adviser pleads guilty to wire fraud

A former White House adviser to former President Obama pled guilty to wire fraud on Friday in connection to an alleged scheme to steal $218,000 from a school network that he helped create. 

“Seth Andrew, a former White House advisor, admitted today to devising a scheme to steal from the very same schools he helped create,” Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Andrew now faces time in federal prison for abusing his position and robbing those he promised to help.”     

The 42-year-old founded Democracy Prep Public Schools in New York City in 2005, and left the position to work for the Department of Education (DOE) in 2013. 

Following his time at the DOE, he worked in the Obama White House as a senior adviser in the Office of Educational Technology, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Following his work at the White House in 2017, he officially severed his ties with the charter school system he had helped to create. 

According to the DOJ, Democracy Prep Public Schools each had to maintain “escrow accounts” that were only meant to be accessed if the school dissolved. Andrew, according to the statement, had access to these accounts, and closed them out when he left the school system. He then placed the money in different accounts that the department labeled “fraud” accounts. 

Andrew pled guilty to one count of wire fraud, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to the statement. He will be sentenced on April 14. 

When Andrew was arrested last April, prosecutors said he was using some of the stolen funds “to obtain a savings on a mortgage for a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment.”