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USF Still Investigating Rao For Bike Theft

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By ADAM EMERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 23, 2009

TAMPA - Expecting a legal battle, University of South Florida administrators still plan to investigate the events that captured on camera a high-ranking dean taking a student's bike.

The matter may have been closed before Abdul Rao rescinded his resignation on Friday. But the university still wants him gone, and administrators want to make sure they understand what happened on Feb. 9.

That day, a campus security camera captured Rao and another man loading a bike into a minivan, and the video spread virally on YouTube. Early last week, after news reports of the video surfaced nationwide, Rao agreed to a $50,000 settlement if he left the university. He has since said he was pressured to sign away his employment.

In response, USF plans to meet today with the doctoral student who owned the bike as well as with the student who reported it missing when she borrowed it.

"If you have to go to court, it will be good to have that review," USF spokesman Michael Hoad said.
Reached on his cell phone Monday, Rao said he was in a meeting and couldn't talk. On Friday, the Oxford-educated dean wrote that he didn't have enough time to consider the settlement and argued the judgment wasn't "compatible with the committed infraction."

He also said that, based on the settlement, he had more time to take his signature off the resignation. Hoad said that's up to lawyers to settle now.

"As far as we're concerned, he's still not an employee, Hoad said.

The university owed Rao about $300,000 on a $384,000 annual contract. But Rao didn't have tenure, and the university could have fired him anyway, Hoad said.

Rao, a senior associate vice president, also may face criminal charges. The state attorney's office in Hillsborough County said it received the paperwork from USF police on the investigation, but it hadn't reached a decision.

Timothy Boyd, the doctoral student who owned the $100 bike, said he won't relent until Rao is charged. When he meets with USF administrators today, he'll have an attorney with him.

Boyd also said that, if USF police don't need to examine his bike further, he'll sell it on eBay and donate the proceeds to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285.

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