State Settles With Former Law School Dean

BALTIMORE (AP) -- The former dean of the University of Maryland law school has agreed to return more than $311,000 in unauthorized bonus payments that were uncovered by a state audit.

Attorney General Douglas Gansler announced Wednesday that the state has reached a settlement with Karen Rothenberg.

Rothenberg will return bonus money she received based on the approval of former University of Maryland, Baltimore president David Ramsay. The attorney general's office says the state determined that Ramsay didn't have the authority to approve the payments. She won't have to return the full amount identified in the audit because she's already paid taxes on some of it.

Gansler says there were "good-faith misunderstandings" that led to the payments. Rothenberg will return to the law school in January as a professor.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)