Dealbreaker

More than a year after the mother-son team of Ayferaet and Hakan Yalincak plead guilty the practically foolproof scam of pretending to have a hedge fund through which they defrauded “investors” of millions of dollars, and five months after Hakan was sent off to serve a 42-month sentence, the Yalincak Family Foundation Lecture Hall remains a fixture on the NYU campus. The Yalincaks had originally pledged $21 million to the school in exchange for the honor of having their name bolted to a wall, though that got shot to shit when it turned out they were full of shit.

What’s the deal, then, with the testament to their crime still being on display for the youth of New York to see? The university, which returned $1.05 million of the $1.25 million the Yalincaks actually managed to cough up for the tribute, says it has not yet figured out how to remove the letters without leaving a noticeable pattern on the wall. “Testing” on “mock-ups” thus far has led the school to believe that it would be “difficult if not impossible to replace the panels on which the lettering is found in a way that will fit in with the look of the remaining, unlettered panels," said NYU spokesman John Beckam. (Apparently, the $200,000 NYU was allowed to keep to “offset the costs incurred by [the] fraudulent gift” does not cover letter-removal.)

While one professor-- probably an old crotchety one, hellbent on truth and consequences-- said he thinks the university is being “just plain stupid” in keeping the Yalincak name on the building, CAS freshman Alexis Johnson doesn't feel the school is at fault and doesn’t “care what funded [the hall].” Just what a budding criminal would say. We kid, Alexis, of course. Yeah, but no, she’ll probably end up working for Stevie Cohen. So we obviously don’t kid at all.

Earlier: Hedge Fund Fraudster Pleads Guilty
Yalincak Mother Sentenced, Yalincak Son in "Big Trouble"
A Stroke Of Genius

A year later, lecture hall still named for felon [Washington Square News]