A former AU employee pleaded guilty May 20 to stealing nearly $400,000 worth of checks made out to AU law journals over a period of six years, according to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Martine Tavakoli will be sentenced for interstate transportation of stolen property on Sept. 22 and will face up to 10 years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Tavakoli worked at the AU Law Review from 1981 through September 2009. The review is a student-run legal journal at the Washington College of Law.

Tavakoli, 49, of McLean, Va., worked first as an administrative assistant for the Law Review and was promoted in 1998 to coordinator, law journals, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

As coordinator, law journals, Tavakoli’s duties included processing checks made out to the Law Review and other AU law journals, depositing those checks into a bank account and disbursing the funds to pay the journals’ expenses.

In September 1998, Tavakoli opened a new bank account under the joint name “AULR c/o Martine Tavakoli,” using the AU taxpayer identification number and her own home address at a branch of SunTrust Bank in McLean according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Officials say Tavakoli deposited checks made payable to the Law Review and the other law journals in the secret bank account, a total of just under $400,000, from January 2003 to June 2009. As part of her plea agreement, she will pay back this sum to AU’s law journals.

AU personnel confronted her about the account in September 2009, when she confessed to using the funds to pay her rent, credit card bills and other personal expenses on a regular basis, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

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