This story is just so weird that I keep waiting for the punch line. Surely a university dean and VP who earns $384,280 annually would never do such a thing.
USF Dean under investigation for taking $100 bikeTAMPA | A University of South Florida vice president who makes $384,280 annually is being investigated on charges he stole a $100 mountain bike. Dr. Abdul Rao was captured on surveillance video Monday night with a man he says is semi-homeless and does odd jobs for him.
In the video, uploaded on YouTube, the pair approach the loading dock at the Johnnie B. Byrd Alzheimer's Center & Research Institute in a van. They get out and look over some parked bikes.
Rao's companion takes a bike and walks it down a ramp. The van drives away. The bike belonged to a graduate student at the Byrd Institute, Rao later learned.
Rao called his actions a "terrible lapse in judgment," but maintained in an interview with the Times that he was only trying to help a person down on his luck "just one of those guys who can't get off the poverty bubble," Rao said.
Here is the video at
You TubeIt was so weird I did a search before I posted it. Here is a post from the Sun Sentinel.
USF dean a bike thief?ake Abdul Rao, a University of South Florida vice president who makes $384,280 and owns a five-bedroom home assessed at $441,738.
Pair him with Victor Waiters, a Miami handyman who travels to Tampa to do handyman work. Waiters has been arrested 29 times since 1988, including 2005 convictions for cocaine possession and resisting an officer, reports the St. Petersburg Times.
Now the professor is under investigation for helping the handyman steal a $100 bike from a student at USF.
It is also up at MSNBC with a small picture.
YouTube Video Shows USF Dean Taking BikeTAMPA - An associate dean at the University of South Florida has admitted to taking a student's bicycle this week in an act that was captured on a surveillance tape and later posted on YouTube.
Abdul Rao, who oversees research grants for the College of Medicine, was suspended Thursday while campus officials investigate.
In a statement, Rao apologized Friday and said he was trying to help a day laborer who needed transportation.
I am just shaking my head in disbelief.