UCLA scammer arrested

The Daily Bruin at UCLA is on to a good story that doesn't turn up anywhere else on a Google search. It seems that the Geffen School of Medicine last fall hired a man who called himself Federiqkoe DiBritto as executive director of development and patient relations — or chief fundraiser — for the division of digestive diseases. But in April, the paper says, he was arrested and unmasked as Freddrick Mark Brito, a parolee who was sentenced to sixteen months in prison on a felony embezzlement charge in 2002. At times he has been caught posing as a Catholic priest performing Mass, weddings and baptisms in Arizona and as a psychiatrist hired by Los Angeles County. After he got out of prison in 2003 he was hired as executive director for the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California, the Daily Bruin reports. At UCLA, where he no longer works, he had access to donor records, including addresses and contact information. "We certainly feel upset and betrayed by anyone who might take a position with the university under false pretenses," said university spokesman Lawrence Lokman. Later this month, Brito was going to stand for election to the Greater Cypress Park Neighborhood Council in northeast L.A. as "DiBritto," but the Daily Bruin got him on the phone and reports Brito confirmed he has dropped out of the race. Hat tip to Bob Patterson for the heads up.