Alleged embezzler Jodie Nealley may be close to signing an agreement with prosecutors, the Daily has learned.
"We might be able to resolve the whole case," Howard Lewis, Nealley's attorney, told the Daily yesterday.
Lewis, a lawyer at the Framingham firm Lewis and Leeper LLC, said that Nealley could plead out within the next month. She currently faces three counts of larceny of over $250, each of which carries up to five years of incarceration.
According to Lewis, Nealley would not necessarily need to admit to her involvement in the embezzlement scandal as part of the potential deal, which would spare her a trial.
"It could involve many types of pleas," he said. "It doesn't have to involve a guilty plea, though."
Jessica Venezia, a spokesperson for Middlesex County District Attorney Gerry Leone, would not comment on whether a plea is in the works or on what conditions her office would demand in a deal.
"We would decline to comment … because it's an ongoing case," she said.
Lewis also raised doubts about the events surrounding Nealley's last days at Tufts. Nealley was fired in November 2007, and Tufts administrators at the time told the Daily that when confronted, Nealley admitted to taking money from the university.
But yesterday, Lewis said that as far as he knows, Nealley never confessed to anybody at Tufts.
"It's not part of the commonwealth's case against Jodie Nealley," he said. "So I would suggest that [the confession] doesn't exist, because if it did exist, they would use it."
Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman declined to comment on Lewis' allegation, as did Venezia.
Nealley and her former coworker Ray Rodriguez are charged with pilfering nearly $1 million from the university.
According to court documents, Nealley, the former director of student activities, took $372,576 between 2001 and 2007.
Specifically, she is charged with writing herself checks, misusing a university debit card, maintaining improper control over the account of a defunct student group, and transferring funds to her personal line of credit. She supposedly spent the money in locations including IKEA, Whole Foods and Omaha Steaks.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have alleged that Rodriguez, who served under Nealley as budget and fiscal coordinator, stole $604,873 between 2005 and 2007, spending it on concert tickets, trips and luxury stores, and at one time, writing himself a check for $100,000.
In the fall, the university received an insurance check in compensation for the alleged embezzlement.
Lewis said he was involved in negotiating the insurance payout, which served as the basis for the Senate's recovered funds, but denied that his efforts to reimburse Tufts represented an admission of Nealley's guilt.
Nealley and Rodriguez have two court dates scheduled for next month, one for a filing deadline and the other for a hearing on a motion to suppress evidence.
