Says She Was Agent for Campus Police : Fired Instructor Accuses Student

A former Cal State Northridge instructor testified Wednesday that allegations of grade-selling in the Pan-African studies department were started by a female student spurned by the son of a professor accused in the scheme.

The instructor, Willie Bellamy, also alleged that the student was employed by the university’s Police Department as an undercover agent to infiltrate the school’s Pan-African studies department. University officials denied the allegation.

The student was one of the first to file a formal complaint against Prof. Eleazu Obinna, who was fired in May for offering A grades to students enrolled in an upper-division class during the spring semester in exchange for selling $100 worth of raffle tickets to benefit a nonprofit foundation he headed, university records show.

Bellamy’s testimony came on the third day of a state personnel board hearing called by Obinna to appeal his firing. Administrative Law Judge Byron Berry continued the hearing until January at the conclusion of testimony Wednesday.

Obinna, a 17-year, tenured professor, withheld comment during the hearing but has denied any wrongdoing in the past.

The female student was one of four students who testified Monday that Obinna offered them an A grade in exchange for selling 20 $5 raffle tickets for the United Crusade Foundation. The woman and three other students testified that no other work was required in the course.

Bellamy said during the hearing that the student was employed by university police to gather information on the Pan-African studies department.

“From what I understand, she was a plant,” Bellamy said Wednesday.

Campus Police Lt. Mike Sugar denied that the woman had ever been employed by his department. “We do not employ students as undercover operatives,” Sugar said.

Bellamy, 39, testified that the student was despondent over her breakup with Obinna’s son, whom she had been dating. Neither the woman nor Obinna’s son, who was not named in the hearing, could be reached for comment on Bellamy’s allegations.

Bellamy, a former part-time instructor, was also fired for his part in the alleged grade-selling scheme. He and Obinna shared responsibility for overseeing about 160 students enrolled in a Pan-African studies fieldwork course during the spring semester.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Bellamy denied telling students that they would receive a grade in exchange for selling the raffle tickets. He said that students were required to perform community work and write a paper on the experience for credit in the course.

Bellamy, now a religious studies graduate student at the school, did not appeal his firing, university officials said.

Former student Donnie E. Haley, 23, testifying on behalf of Obinna, said Wednesday that he was never told that he could get an A grade for selling raffle tickets. Obinna and Bellamy had only asked whether he would be willing to sell raffle tickets, Haley said. The selling of tickets was not related to his grade in the course, Haley testified.

Haley said he attended two field trips and wrote a paper but never received credit since the class was canceled because of the allegations by university President James W. Cleary in April.

About $6,500 raised from the sale of the raffle tickets was put into a trust account controlled by Obinna’s lawyer, Francis E. Smith, according to testimony by one of Smith’s employees. About $3,400 has been refunded to ticket buyers so far, the employee said.