Connecticut Sues Ex-Investment Chief at Wesleyan

Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, announced that he is joining a suit by Wesleyan University against Thomas Kannam, the university's former investment officer. A statement from Blumenthal said that Kannam used Wesleyan funds to do work for private firms to which he had financial ties -- in violation of university rules. Further, the suit charges that Kannam billed the university for trips -- one to the Super Bowl, one to Britain for his entire family -- that had no connection to university business. The attorney general's suit charges that these actions, on which Inside Higher Ed reported in January, violate state law. A lawyer for Kannam told Bloomberg: "Alumni, faculty and students should also be distressed that the university’s leadership has chosen to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees on a case that will ultimately produce million-dollar counterclaims against the school by those whose reputations have been severely injured by Wesleyan’s reckless allegations.”