ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The State University of New York has placed a high-ranking official on leave after it was revealed that he may have fabricated a story about surviving a bombing in Afghanistan and other claims in a speech last fall.
The Times Union reports SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse announced Sunday it placed chief of staff Sergio Garcia on leave while it investigates.
The $340,000-a-year senior vice president said in a videotaped speech that he was at the scene of what he said was a 2011 bombing in Afghanistan, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is his close friend.
The newspaper reported the bombing Garcia described actually happened in 2013, after he had left the country. Rice was not immediately available for comment.
University officials declined requests for comment from Garcia.
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