As reported on BuffaloNews.com, Andrea Costantino was sentenced to 250 hours of community service after pleading guilty to Grand Larceny. Costantino, former Director of Campus Living, took nearly $15,000 from a Faculty Student Association Account.
$8,000 of the funds were donated to charity in order to secure The 2013 Boston Marathon bib. The rest of the funds were used to purchase a treadmill and gift cards to purchase athletic apparel.
Andrea pled guilty to the charges earlier this year, and by paying back the money, she avoided jail time.
When someone agrees to raise money for charity to earn a Boston bib. they are responsible for a fundraising minimum. If they are unable to raise the minimum amount, they are personally responsible for the difference.
Registered for The 2018 Boston Marathon
Andrea is registered for the 2018 Boston Marathon. She qualified at The 2017 Pocono Mountain Run For The Red Marathon. She has run the Boston Marathon multiple times using qualifying times.
It is unknown at this point if The Boston Marathon would take any action given the method she used to obtain the 2013 bib.
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She’s not a good person but she qualified. There is no morality clause, is there?
I don’t know. She was caught, pled guilty, paid back the funds and did community service hours. We all do really dumb stuff at times (maybe not to this level) but what if our dumb decisions were held against us our whole lives and followed us with everything we wanted to do? She paid her debt to society and qualified legitimately to run Boston. As long as she pays her way legitimately, there’s no reason Boston should do anything now related to 2013 IMO. People deserve 2nd chances. If she does the same stuff again and didn’t learn her lesson then they can revisit the issue. But I think leave her alone. I’d rather bib mules and people who cut courses to qualify get called out to keep them from taking legitimate qualifier spaces personally.
I feel like she did her time, correct? So should she pay for her mistake for the rest of her life? I personally feel if she did her time then let it go.
I don’t see how they have any jurisdiction over it. She didn’t cheat the BAA out of anything, and she honored the terms of all her contracts with them. The criminal action was against her employer; what she used the money to pay for is irrelevant. There are probably plenty of people at the Boston starting line with criminal records, many of which are for financial crimes. The BAA received payment from all of them and wasn’t defrauded, so they’re legit. Same thing with her.
The people who should have an issue with her are her employer and the kids whose money she took. And it sounds like they did.
This is not what this website is about. I really like sour work in trying to keep running clean and prevent cheating. In this case you are shaming a person who paid her dues.
Looking at her results that I can find (and I’m not very savvy), she apparently ran a 3:15 in Boston in 2013. None of her results otherwise are anywhere near that time. I find that very curious.
This is very sad but there may be more to this story. Can you investigate? Bib # 25044 at the 2013 Boston Marathon: Her “finish time” at the 2013 Boston is not realistic. All the official splits from 5K on are way faster than any of the 72 races she has run in Buffalo since 2003. She’s certainly a real runner and a dedicated runner — but she did not run this result. If she did run it then we need to celebrate her incredible achievement. The pacing on the hilly and crowded Boston course was remarkably steady and all way faster than she has ever gone before or since at any road race distance.
I totally agree. She cheated or muled at Boston
This site is supposed to be about catching course cutters, people using bib mules, and race cheating in general. In this case this article looks more like tabloid journalism or public shaming. This happened 4 years ago, the person paid her dues. What is the point? This means that from now on you will also make sure that the funds used to pay for the entry fee/donation were obtained legally? Please…
She was sentenced two days ago. It is not an old story. Did you also comment on the Buffalo News stations? I simply shared the story while focusing on the Boston aspect.
First, please let me say that I am grateful for the work you do. You do a great service to the running community catching cheaters, and specifically preventing them from leaving a Boston qualifier without their rightful place in the race. However, this article is out of your regular “editorial line”. How people pay for their entry is a completely different matter.
Rolanda, it IS relevant because where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. Derek, We compile race stats. We believe the 3:15 Boston Marathon finish in 2013 cited for this subject may not be legitimate. Perhaps its an administrative error. It would be good if it could be investigated and corrected.
The problem isn’t the runners. It’s the Boston Marathon. Clearly we need to get rid of the Boston Marathon OR get rid of qualifying times for the Boston Marathon. Then, no one would have to lie, cheat, steal to run Boston 😉 😀
One aspect of the justice system is to act as a deterrent to other people thinking of breaking the law. This is done by publishing the convictions and punishments. In the past this was relatively straightforward: small crime – local press, medium crime – state press, serious crime – national press, monstrous crime – international press. With the birth of the internet there is now no such thing as local press. A minor story can go round the world if the conditions are right. I am not saying this is a good thing, but it is the new reality. Each web site owner now decides whether to spread the story or not.
When you consider her crime, stealing $15,000, compared to course cutting and bib mules, her’s is far more serious and so should travel further. In the old days this would have probably gone to the state press level, whereas the bib mule would not have gone any further than the local press, if it even got there.
We visitors to this site applaud Derek’s efforts to publicize course cutters and bib mules. Yet he is taking what is considered a very trivial crime to most people and exposing it at an international level. I am not arguing what is right or wrong but rather pointing out how different everything is in the age of the internet.
Wow, people are nuts. Found this info:
//Costantino resigned from the university in August after two decades there. Her annual salary was $123,542.//
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/09/08/buffalo-administrators-plead-guilty-larceny
This woman destroyed her 20 year career, where she was already making 6 figures! Just so she could buy a treadmill and some workout clothes?! WTF. How come she couldn’t afford that on her salary? Ridiculous. Shame her publicly, she deserves it.
4 Years ago – This is not News
I am not defending what she done and by right she should have been shamed publically about it when sentenced, but 4 years on she is rebuilding her life – She probably has a job, paying taxes, learnt her lesson and moving on and now this article may force her to walk out on her job, lose her freinds, move house and start all over again
I’ve noticed that the articles on the website haven’t been as frequent as earlier in the year (Think the was 1 new post in a space of 4 weeks at one point) which is good as less cheating I guess, but doesn’t mean Derek should go digging up old news like this to keep the website running
I personally would like to see this article taken down
I literally posted this the day after sentencing and the day after it was reported on local news outlets.
Unfortunately, there is not less cheating.
I have a backlog of articles to write.
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