Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters – On Friday, a former White House education adviser was charged with wire fraud. The charges stemmed from $218,000 theft by a charter school network he created to receive a lower interest rate for a Manhattan apartment that cost a million dollars.

Seth Andrew, 42, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge John Cronan in Manhattan and will pay restitution to the network, Democracy Prep Public Schools, which teaches https://democracyprep.org/about mostly lower-income people of color.

Andrew also faced charges last April for money laundering and false statements to a bank. Andrew could spend up to 20 years prison when he is sentenced on April 14, but he will probably get much shorter.

Edward Kim, his lawyer said that Seth Andrew had worked hard for more than 20 years to provide educational, democratic and technological opportunities to the most disenfranchised people in the world. He deeply regrets past errors. “He has taken responsibility and accepted it with courage.”

Prosecutors said that Andrew stole the escrow accounts of Democracy Prep’s schools in 2019 so that his wife and he could afford the 2 million dollar apartment.

Andrew was able to qualify for a mortgage of $1.78million with a 2.5% rate. This is a half-point decrease, according to prosecutors. Andrew’s wife wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing.

Democracy Prep stated that it has 24 schools serving more than 7000 students in New York City, New Jersey and Louisiana.

Andrew’s unauthorized withdrawals have been called “a grave betrayal” by it.

Andrew established Democracy Prep in 2005. In 2013, he joined the U.S. Department of Education and became a senior advisor in the White House Office of Educational Technology.