Basically a kid from San Jose went to Auburn and told everyone he was one of the first employees of Google and sold out and was a billionaire. Auburn brass was so impressed that someone from Silicon Valley would relocate to Auburn they rolled out the red carpet for him. They put him on some of the boards, made him a consultant and honorary instructor and was paying him a huge salary to do absolutely nothing but say "Auburn is hip". He started an incubator where the Auburn brass invested. He ended up only being charged with taking $2 million from them but he took a lot more. He was telling these kids and Auburn brass that their ideas were being negotiated. People thought their ideas were being fought over for tens of millions of dollars. One was a vending machine at Six Flags that he said was going to go for $70 million. During all of this, all this kid did was party in Vegas and blew through millions. No one's idea was bought by anyone.
Auburn never did a background check. Never. Google. Turns out his only previous job was scooping ice cream in Palo Alto.
He left town and tried to do it again in College Station and finally got busted.