The Internal Revenue Service is seeking to forfeit the $1.3 million home of Cecilia Chang, the late former dean at St. Johns University who committed suicide in the Jamaica Estates home November, during a federal fraud trial in a Brooklyn Federal Court. Chang is accused of swindling the University of more than $1 million and bribing foreign students with scholarships and later using them as her personal servants.
The IRS also plans to take away the $400,000 in Chang's account to recover the stolen money from the university funds.
Foreign students from China and Taiwan were forced to work as Chang's servants in the Tudor-styled Queens home in Jamaica Estates in exchange for scholarships. They were asked to cook, clean, vacuum, empty the garbage and wash her delicates by hand. Chang is alleged to have threatened them with expulsion from the university if they failed to perform any duties.
Chang, head of the Center for Asian Studies and vice president of international relations, lived in the Tryon Place home since the 1970s.
"Many of these students came from poor families and without a scholarship they did not have the means to obtain a degree from a respected American university such as St. John's," Internal Revenue Service special agent Sheldon Tang said.
In February, the IRS filed an affidavit in the Brooklyn Federal Court to seize maximum possible money from the assets of Chang. She embezzled more than $1 million from the school and deposited them in various bank accounts opened in students' names. She was arrested and charged in 2010 after serving the University for almost 30 years.
