Officials: NY researcher hired actors, duped them into false testimony during misconduct probe

Cuomo: NY researcher used actors to fake testimony

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A former University at Buffalo addictions researcher hired professional actors to testify on his behalf during an investigation into whether he fabricated data in federally funded studies, state prosecutors said Tuesday.

William Fals-Stewart paid three actors to speak by phone during a university misconduct hearing in 2007 — and then sued the state for $4 million when their false testimony helped exonerate him, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office said.

The office charged Fals-Stewart with grand larceny, perjury, identity theft, offering a false instrument and falsifying business records.

“The charges in this case allege a pattern of lies and deceit that a public employee used to attempt to defraud New York’s taxpayers of millions of dollars,” Cuomo said.

Fals-Stewart, 48, appeared in Buffalo City Court on Tuesday, where bail was set at $2,500. His attorney did not immediately return a call for comment, and no one responded to a telephone message left at his home.

Fals-Stewart told the actors they were being hired for a mock trial training exercise when they were really providing sworn testimony before a school inquiry panel, prosecutors said. The panel was investigating suspicions raised in 2004 that Fals-Stewart inflated the number of research recruits in reports to the National Institutes of Health.

The actors, using scripts written by Fals-Stewart, testified as three people who had worked on his projects at the university’s Research Institute on Addictions or who had access to records, prosecutors said in court documents. One of them told investigators he had been paid $200 for his testimony.

Following the hearing, the inquiry panel cited the witness testimony in recommending the investigation into Fals-Stewart be dropped.

Fals-Stewart, claiming the allegations had tarnished his reputation, then demanded $4 million from the state to settle a federal lawsuit, Cuomo’s office said.

The attorney general’s office uncovered the fraud when, as the state’s lawyer, it was called on to defend the university and the state against the court action, Cuomo’s office said.

University of Buffalo spokesman Joe Brennan said the institution was cooperating.

“We support the attorney general’s efforts to get to the bottom of this matter, and we will continue to cooperate with the attorney general’s staff,” he said.

Fals-Stewart was a researcher at the university from 2000 to 2005, Brennan said. He was the principal investigator for five federal grants, according to his lawsuit. After leaving the school, Fals-Stewart was hired as a research scientist at the University of Rochester.