Fired NIC financial aid director pleads guilty to two felonies

The former financial aid director for North Idaho College pleaded guilty this morning to computer crimes and attempted misuse of public funds related to a scheme to entice students to have sex in exchange for college aid. Joseph M. Bekken could be given up to seven and a half years in prison and fined as much as $52,500 when he is sentenced Oct. 19 in Idaho’s 1st District Court. The Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has agreed to drop three other felony charges against Bekken, 37. Those include burglary, attempting to procure a prostitute and bribery using scholarship money from NIC’s private nonprofit foundation. District Judge Lansing Haynes accepted Bekken’s guilty pleas in a 15-minute hearing this morning. In a quiet voice, Bekken explained to Haynes how he took NIC Foundation money and offered it to individuals in exchange for sexual relationships, and how he used the college computer system, including instant messaging, to discuss the inappropriate transfer of funds. According to investigators, Bekken first used a Craigslist notice to contact students with an offer of scholarship money in exchange for sexual relations. Police, working with NIC and the FBI, created a false student account under the name “Sheryl Roberts” to respond to the solicitation. He secured $587 from the foundation for the fictitious student with the understanding he would go to her apartment to have sex with her on Feb. 2. Police confronted and interviewed him, and the college fired Bekken that day. Bekken was hired in 2010 and was paid $73,720 a year, according to the college. Before that he worked five years at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. That college said it also had fired Bekken.