Former Penn campus hotel exec gets prison for fraud

The former general manager of the University of Pennsylvania's campus hotel was sentenced to five years in federal prison Tuesday and ordered to repay more than $3 million he bilked from the school.

Kenneth Kapikian, 58, of Wayne, pleaded guilty in June to six counts of fraud and one count of conspiracy in June, admitting that he and the hotel's former chief engineer, Dennis Gagliardi, submitted false invoices charging millions to the Sheraton University City Hotel from a washing-machine company they co-owned.

Prosecutors say the pair also instructed hotel vendors to pad invoices they submitted between 2009 and 2013. Kapikian and Gagliardi collected the difference, often worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, as kickbacks.

Gagliardi, of Chester Springs, has also pleaded guilty. He is expected to be sentenced next month. Several hotel contractors have also been charged. - Jeremy Roebuck