HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. ― A former professor at the center of an academic scandal involving athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been criminally charged.
Orange County District Attorney James Woodall said Monday that Julius Nyang’Oro has been indicted on a single felony count of obtaining property by false pretenses.
Nyang’Oro was chairman of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. He resigned in 2011 during an investigation into grades awarded to Tar Heel athletes for no-show classes that required very little work.
Woodall said the charge comes over a summer course that Nyang’Oro was paid $12,000 to teach. The university says he did not hold classes. Nyang’Oro could face up to 10 months in prison.
Woodall said a second person could be indicted in January.