Burlington
A former college employee who coordinated the school’s response to an FBI subpoena in February 2016 said she was contacted by two attorneys representing Jane Sanders shortly after VtDigger broke the news confirming the federal probe in late April.
“They wanted information on what I had been asked by the FBI. They were trying to get clarification on what the accusations are because they had not been contacted by anybody as to an investigation,” said Coralee Holm, the former dean of operations and advancement for Burlington College.
Two former Burlington College trustees said they were also contacted by attorneys representing Sanders, wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Holm said she got a call from the office of prominent Burlington attorney Rich Cassidy in late April or May.
Jane Sanders did not immediately return a call requesting comment for this report and has refused VtDigger’s repeated requests for an interview about Burlington College since late 2015.
As president of Burlington College in 2010, Sanders secured a $6.7 million loan from People’s United Bank, which the college used to purchase a 33-acre lakefront campus for the school.
Federal investigators are probing aspects of that land deal, according to Holm and another former employee who said they had been contacted by the FBI. Federal officials have declined to comment on the investigation.
The loan agreement required the college to provide evidence of more than $2 million in pledged donations as collateral. However, three donors — including the largest, listed at $1 million — have told VtDigger their pledges were misrepresented in the loan documents.
Between 2010 and 2014 the college collected only $676,000 in donations, according to former college officials. The school also was never able to increase enrollment as Sanders had projected. It closed in May 2016, with officials citing debt from the land purchase as the primary reason.