Man Charged With Mail Fraud Pleads Not Guilty

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — One of two men accused of swindling more than $157,000 from Southern University has pleaded not guilty in Baton Rouge federal court. U.S. Attorney Donald J. Cazayoux Jr. says the other man has not been located since the pair's indictment in February. Forty-year-old Scott D. Woodall of Denham Springs told U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Riedlinger on Thursday that he is innocent of 12 mail fraud charges and one count of theft from a federally funded institution. Woodall formerly served as Southern's director of information technologies. The Advocate reports that neither Woodall nor his attorney, Anthony M. Bertucci, would comment after the hearing. The missing defendant is 59-yeaer-old Parviz Sharifrazi of Baton Rouge. The indictment alleges the men set up shell companies to defraud the university.

(Information in the following story is from: The Advocate, http://www.2theadvocate.com)