The discovery of eight forged e-mails from General Representative Sanobar Sajan’s office was brought to the attention of the undergraduate student government during a Tuesday meeting.
According to Finance Committee Chair Parsa Sobhani, an unknown number of students posed as liaisons for approximately eight high-profile speakers including former President Jimmy Carter, and forged e-mails requesting about $36,000 from the Undergraduate Student Association Council/Associated Students UCLA Board of Directors Programming Fund.
USAC decided to allow Sajan to hold an investigation into the forged e-mails, which contained numerous anomalies, including timestamp irregularities, a nonexistent Web site, false e-mail addresses and domains, and an unusual e-mail font.
Sajan will present her findings during next Tuesday’s USAC meeting.
Sobhani said the discovery of the forgeries prevented an immense loss from the student budget.
The budget provides funding for student services, which Sobhani said is mostly derived from annual fees of all undergraduate students.
“Students all across UCLA should understand the gravity of the situation. They are entitled to know where the student fees are going,” he said.
During Monday’s budget hearing, the Budget Review Programming Committee had suspicions of forgery and requested Sajan to submit the set of e-mails in HTML format. A second set of e-mails confirmed the committee’s suspicions. The Budget Review Programming Committee held an emergency meeting Tuesday morning, and decided not to allocate any money to the Social Justice Speaker Series and to present the inconsistencies at the USAC meeting.
A subsequent resolution to censure Sajan was proposed by Sobhani during USAC’s weekly meeting. He said that Sajan was responsible for signing off the forged proposal with approval in November and for continuing oversight during a final review.
“She has a vast background of funding allocations and applications. I’m really skeptical that she says she was not aware of the obvious mistakes,” Sobhani said.
During the USAC meeting, Sajan said the allegations of fraud were not mentioned during Monday’s hearing, but she added that the forging was completely unacceptable.
“I recognize my lack of oversight. Yet, I think that at the table my integrity was questioned without proper facts,” Sajan said in the meeting.
During the public council forum, Sajan continued to say that the resolution was unfair because no one approached her about the forgery and the resolution presented a biased view.
“I wasn’t the one who was dishonest or created the forgeries,” Sajan added.
Other council members said that the resolution was a necessary reprimand for Sajan.
Facilities Commissioner Sherlyn Mossahebfar addressed Sajan regarding their roles as elected public officials with certain responsibilities.
“People put trust in your hands. People deserve the right to know. This was done in your commission and you happened to look over that,” Mossahebfar said.
Cultural Affairs Commissioner Bernice Shaw said she disagreed with how the resolution proposal was brought to the table.
“The comments were made very distastefully. The issue was brought up in haste, and they did not think about the repercussions of the resolution,” Shaw said.
Sajan said she will first consult the administration for proper procedures and hold individual interviews with her staff during the rest of this week. It is still unknown who created the forged documents.
“This whole forgery thing is unacceptable to me as a person and as an elected official. After the way the proposal was given at the council table, I am worried about my job and my integrity,” Sajan said.