Ashley Boudreaux, an operations manager at Jefferson Health, would like to run a hospital someday.
“I would really like to make it to the C-suite — be a CEO,” said Boudreaux, 37, who works at the medical group’s Philadelphia and Montgomery County sites.
So, without quitting her job, Boudreaux pursued her undergraduate degree in health administration with the University of Phoenix. She graduated in 2023, and now she’s on track to get her master’s in business in November. She’s done all her coursework while working full-time.
It wasn’t easy, Boudreaux said.
“You’re just moving constantly,” she said. “When I look back, I’m like, I don’t know how I did it.”
It helped that Jefferson provided some financial support for Boudreaux’s education.
More than 40% of employers offer this benefit, according to Alex Alonso, chief knowledge officer at SHRM, a human resources association. That number has waned a bit in recent years, but some large local employers still do so.
They include Comcast, which offers tuition reimbursement as an employee benefit and works with Drexel University to shape several master’s programs for tech workers. Another is Aramark, which covers up to the full cost of tuition for eligible hourly employees, and tuition assistance for salaried employees. And Philadelphia’s city workers get tuition discounts at more than a dozen local colleges.
For many, completing a four-year degree would still prove beneficial, said Sean Vereen, president and CEO of nonprofit Heights Philadelphia, which connects young people with education and career opportunities.
“The college degree is not the only way to get to economic success, … [but] there is a connection between your ability to have stronger credentials and your ability to move economically,” Vereen said.
Sean Vereen of Heights Philadelphia. Paola Nogueras
Why workplaces offer tuition assistance
Federal tax incentives have encouraged employers to assist with education costs, said Alonso of SHRM. The benefit also helps companies compete for good hires, he noted.
Most commonly, Alonso said, employers offer up to $5,250 per employee per year. That’s the maximum they can give toward education costs without the employee paying taxes on it. Workers are often required to show that the education is related to their job or career, so they “can actually bring back what they learn to their workplace,” he said.
Sometimes getting additional education, including short-term microcredentials, are prerequisite to a promotion, said Phil Brooks, a vice president at nonprofit Graduate Philadelphia, which supports adult students.
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Center City Philadelphia is shown in this 2020 file photo. Heather Khalifa / Staff Photographer
Hurdles for worker-students
Getting a degree while working full-time can mean early mornings, later nights, giving up weekend time, or even using lunch breaks to squeeze in school work.
Other challenges can include transportation for in-person programs or access to a computer and reliable internet connection, says Brooks. Students who owe money to a school where they were previously enrolled might also be held back from transferring or finishing their degree.
Graduate Philadelphia sometimes helps students negotiate with schools to decrease that amount owed, “literally removing this barrier as much as we can,” Brooks said.
“Slow progress is still progress,” she said. “A lot of times, when we start off on a journey, we see the entire staircase, but not realizing that it takes one step at a time to get to the top.”
Getting the promotion
When Nicole Henderson, 38, graduated high school, going to college right away wasn’t an option.
“It just didn’t make sense for our family,” she said. “We just couldn’t afford it.”
Years later, while working at a trading firm, she started pursuing a bachelor’s in accounting. But she put it on hold after a semester when she learned her employer, who encouraged her to go back to school, wouldn’t cover her tuition.
Five years ago, while searching for work as an executive assistant, she saw a role open up at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia that didn’t require a bachelor’s degree. She got the job and soon felt the urge to continue advancing her career.
“I’m now at this huge organization with all these opportunities,” Henderson said. “I was like, oh, man, eventually I’m going to have to have this bachelor’s degree.”
Nicole Henderson in her home office in Darby. She went back to school while working full-time and recently earned her bachelor’s from Temple.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
In 2023, she started working toward that undergraduate degree again. Her colleagues at CHOP were supportive, and she was given flexibility to tune into classes from work sometimes, or work remotely on the days she had a lot of studying to do. CHOP also reimburses a portion of her tuition and has a student loan repayment program. Without that financial support, Henderson says she wouldn’t have pursued the degree.
Juggling work and school can be exhausting, Henderson said. She slept through the day some Saturdays because her “brain was just so overloaded with information.”
But she got her bachelor’s in business from Temple University in December and walked across the stage at graduation in May.
Her classes gave her a new awareness of what’s important to bosses and leaders at her organization, she said, and “how to speak their language.”
She also negotiated a promotion from executive associate to project manager, with a raise.
Now she doesn’t have to wonder “how am I going to convince people that I’m qualified to do this?” she said. “I kind of already have this degree that says that for me.”
Temple University will significantly raise the salaries of its police force under a new five-year contract aimed at addressing its longstanding problem of attracting and retaining enough officers.
The new contract — which comes a year before the previous contract was set to expire — was initiated by university president John Fry after a staffing study released in December found the school needed to increase its number of police officers.
The new pay scale more closely aligns with that of the Philadelphia Police Department, the university said, and is expected to help the school reach its goal of increasing its number of patrol officers by 29, or 58%, over five years. It now has 79 police officers on staff — about 50 of them patrol officers — with three more poised to start Sept. 8. Five more are ready to graduate from Temple’s police academy in October, with more lined up to start there, the university said.
“We understand, like in our bones, how vital this work is not only to the safety of our students and our employees but to our neighbors, which we prioritize as well,” Fry said in an interview Thursday. “If we’re going to make North Philadelphia in particular an investable area, it all starts with public environment and public safety. No one’s going to contemplate making major research or commercial or residential or retail investments in an area that they don’t have confidence in.”
Under the new pact — which was ratified in June and runs through June 30, 2031 — an officer with at least three years of experience will start at a salary of $92,000, up $8,572, or 10.25%, from the previous salary of $83,428.
Those with at least five years of experience will start at $100,000, up $12,878, or 14.75%, from $87,122.
And officers will get raises ranging from 3% to 6.5% at anniversary milestones or across-the-board increases of 3% — whichever is greater. The agreement was announced Thursday.
“From a competitive standpoint, this new contract will make a huge difference,” Andrew Lanetti, president of the Temple University Police Association, the union, said in a statement. “It is going to entice young officers at the beginning of their career to join Temple, and it will also entice officers from other agencies to join our department.”
And it is helping to keep officers, too, he said in an interview.
“Many people who were thinking about moving on to other departments have now changed their minds,” he said.
Officers will see significant salary bumps, ranging from $5,000 to $17,000, as they reach each level, he said.
The contract, said Denise Wilhelm, interim vice president of public safety, also has made officers feel more valued.
“This is a true partnership, and it shows,” Wilhelm said.
Temple enrolled 29,503 students last year excluding its campuses in Rome, Tokyo, and Kyoto, Japan. Its police officers patrol on and around the school’s main campus and health sciences campus in North Philadelphia and on its Ambler campus.
The university had faced criticism from the Temple police union in the past for not doing enough to recruit and retain officers. In a social media post in December 2024, the union said the department had lost more than 50 officers since 2022.
The new pact also includes paid parental leave, an additional week of vacation for a total of five after 15.5 years, field training officer pay, and hazard pay for working during declared states of emergency, the university said.
The staffing study released in December showed that Temple was below the middle tier of a framework that rates law enforcement agencies. The university at that time had 77 sworn officers — 50 of them patrol officers — and Fry pledged to add 29 patrol officers, one detective, six sergeants, and one lieutenant over the next five years. That would increase the overall number of sworn officers to 114.
“We must, and we will, deploy ever more compelling and creative incentives to make Temple’s Department of Public Safety a destination employer for law enforcement in our region,” Fry, who named public safety a top priority when he started as Temple’s president in November 2024, said at that time.
Retaining and hiring police officers have remained challenging, as has been true for police departments nationally. The university in the past had increased salaries and benefits, added signing and retention bonuses and higher contributions to retirement accounts, and hired an associate director to focus solely on hiring, recruitment, retention, and training.
But the overall number of officers had declined over the last few years anyway. Temple ended the last academic year with 76 officers, down one from December.
Fry said he is confident this time will be different because the strategy is long-term and intentional, with the university prepared to make the budgetary investment, even though it means sacrifices will have to be made elsewhere.
“We’re certainly going to do better than we have been doing,” he said.
The university is preparing to bring in new leadership for public safety. Jennifer Griffin, Temple’s former vice president of public safety, resigned in June after nearly four challenging years on the job. The university is conducting a national search for her replacement.
Griffin had started in August 2022 as the university continued to cope with the aftermath of the shooting death of student Samuel Collington outside his off-campus apartment in November 2021.
She led the department when Temple Officer Christopher Fitzgerald was shot and killed in 2023 while on duty and through other challenges facing the campus.
During her tenure, the university implemented or began implementation of all 68 recommendations from a safety audit by former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey’s firm.
The board announced new leadership — with plans to appoint veteran educator Chris McGinley as interim superintendent — and an independent review of district policies, with recommendations to follow in 60 days.
But questions remain about how the board will respond to the district’s alleged mishandling of the situation, including by employees faulted in a grand jury report. Parents on Tuesday, including some who have alleged the district’s safety problems extend beyond the football program, voiced skepticism of the board’s promises.
The district will pay former Superintendent Brian Scriven, who resigned last week, as part of a separation agreement, according to a spokesperson, but terms have not been disclosed.
Here is what happens next as the board deals with the aftermath of the criminal charges announced two weeks ago, and the lack of confidence expressed by community members:
A former superintendent returns
The board said it plans to tap McGinley, a longtime educator who served as Cheltenham’s superintendent in the early 2000s, to lead the district following Scriven’s resignation.
McGinley, who more recently worked as an education professor at Temple University, will be appointed by the board at a special meeting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., district spokesperson Kevin Kaufman said Thursday.
Chris McGinley, center, and Angela McIver, right, at a meeting of the Philadelphia Board of Education on Jan. 30, 2020.Charles Fox / Staff Photographer
McGinley, who began his education career as a teacher in Philadelphia, joined Cheltenham in 1999 as an assistant superintendent, where he oversaw efforts to address the district’s racial achievement gap. He then became Cheltenham superintendent, leaving the district in 2006 before becoming superintendent two years later in Lower Merion, which he led through 2014.
McGinley then served on the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, which oversaw the city’s schools while they were under state control. He was later named to the Philadelphia school board by former Mayor Jim Kenney, leaving the board in 2020.
McGinley could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Scriven had received a new five-year contract in December. Kaufman said in an email Thursday that “the terms and conditions of Dr. Scriven’s separation agreement will be negotiated (in accordance with Dr. Scriven’s contract and applicable law) and approved publicly at a future meeting.”
An outside lawyer’s review
The board has enlisted Leigh Dalton, an education attorney based in York, Pa., with the Saxton & Stump firm, to review its policies and procedures and produce recommendations to the board in 60 days.
Board president Leah Mulhearn said Tuesday that the review would “include consideration of the grand jury’s findings and how to address them.”
None of those findings were discussed by the board Tuesday. In a scathing report accompanying the recommendation of criminal charges, the grand jury accused the district of “incompetence” while describing the actions of three employees at the high school.
Taryn Knox (left) speaks to School Board President Leah Mulhearn and Director of Business Joshua Sweigard during the Cheltenham School Board meeting in Elkins Park on Tuesday, August 11, 2026. The school board was meeting for the first time since criminal charges against four football coaches and six players were announced, and since Brian Scriven resigned as superintendent. .Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The trio — labeled in the report only as Employees #1, #2, and #3 — texted one another after the mother of the 15-year-old victim reported her son’s assault on Sept. 7. One said the student had a “chip on his shoulder” from not making varsity and said he had steered the mother away from coming to the high school in person.
The employees also indicated they trusted the head coach, Terence Tolbert, and did not believe the mother that Tolbert — who, along with three other coaches, has since been charged with conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child — had instructed the victim not to tell his parents what had happened. The report said the district then included Tolbert in its investigation.
Asked about the status of the three employees, Kaufman said Thursday that the district “doesn’t comment on specific personnel matters.”
On Thursday, Cheltenham High School principal Benjamin Hammond informed families that Mark Hoff, who was vice principal at the high school last year but had been reassigned to Wyncote Elementary in July, would be returning to the high school this fall.
“Due to the heightened environment about student safety and culture, and acknowledging community concerns, the district has decided to continue Mark Hoff’s assignment as vice principal at Cheltenham High School,” Hammond said in a message to families, adding that Hoff would “provide stability this upcoming school year.”
“While communications between counsel are privileged, the board does intend to report out on the recommendations that she makes where appropriate,” Kaufman said.
Football is still canceled
The board will also be reviewing all athletic programs, “top to bottom,” Mulhearn said. And there is no timetable for when football, which the district already canceled in May, will resume.
“Football will not return until we address this, no matter how long it takes,” Mulhearn said.
Safety changes
Mulhearn said some safety changes were already underway. The district is “ensuring that all staff members have current criminal history and child abuse clearances on file,” she said. The grand jury report had said that at least five of the district’s football coaches last year were not up to date on clearances related to child abuse reporting requirements.
She also said the district was “communicating and reinforcing coach expectations and plans for improved locker-room supervision.” While there was an office in the football locker room, coaches did not use it last season, leaving players unsupervised, according to the grand jury report.
Cheltenham has “begun implementing” recommendations from an audit by the Center for Safe Schools, Mulhearn said. She also said the board had retained the Bucks County Intermediate Unit “to audit our human resources function.”
The Cheltenham school board meeting Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Elkins Park.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The criminal cases
Three coaches and the two players charged as adults by the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office will face a district judge at a preliminary hearing scheduled for Aug. 27. (Ralph Burnley, the fourth coach charged, has not yet been arraigned in the case, and there is no indication he has hired an attorney. He did not respond to a request for comment.)
The four players charged as juveniles will face separate proceedings in juvenile court that are not open to the public.
At the preliminary hearing for the other defendants, prosecutors will present evidence to the judge to support the charges through witnesses. Defense attorneys will be given the opportunity to cross-examine those witnesses and make arguments to the judge for their clients’ innocence.
After the hearing, the judge will determine whether the prosecution has proved the validity of the charges and, if so, will send the cases to county court.
Staff writer Jess Rohan contributed to this article.
Philadelphia police are searching for a man they say walked up to a couple sitting on a porch and opened fire late Sunday night, killing the woman and injuring the man before fleeing.
Shariff Perry, 35, is charged in an arrest warrant with murder, possession of an illegal firearm, and related crimes in the killing of Michelle Wilson, 61, and the shooting of her 67-year-old husband.
Surveillance video from a business on Sunday captured a man wearing a hat and surgical mask — who police now say is Perry — walking to Wilson’s home in the 2800 block of North 24th Street in North Philadelphia. There, the video showed, the man pulled out a gun and fired repeatedly.
Wilson was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital shortly after the 11:49 p.m. shooting. Her husband was also taken to the hospital, where, police said, he was stable.
Police described Perry as a male, 5 feet, 8 inches tall, and weighing 170 pounds. Anyone with information about Perry or the killing is asked to contact the department’s homicide unit at 215-686-3334 or its tip line at 215-686-TIPS (8477). A $20,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to Perry’s arrest and conviction, police said.
Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.
Albert James Mamary, 59, of Wynnewood, attending physician and professor of thoracic medicine and surgery at Temple University, researcher, writer, mentor, artist, outdoorsman, craftsman, and amateur bicycling champion, died Thursday, July 9, of cholangiocarcinoma at Temple University Hospital.
A 1999 graduate of Temple’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Dr. Mamary spent his career at Temple and affiliated hospitals. He was an expert in pulmonary disease, transplants, and sleep disorders at the Temple Lung Center, and became program director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at Temple Hospital in 2006.
He earned a master’s degree in anthropology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia and his premedical school credits at the University of Pennsylvania. In a tribute, his family said: “His education in both medicine and anthropology reflected a lifelong belief that caring for a patient required understanding not only the disease but the whole person.”
Over more than three decades at Temple — as a student, resident, fellow, professor, and physician — Dr. Mamary treated thousands of patients, mentored hundreds of students and doctors, lectured in classrooms and at seminars, and wrote more than 60 scientific papers and textbook chapters. He was named a top doctor by Philadelphia Magazine several times and was featured in The Inquirer and on 6abc TV for his lead role in a successful double-lung transplant in 2015.
“It’s been 120 to 145 patients, individual patients that we’ve been able to help every year,” Dr. Mamary told CBS News in 2024. “That’s really the aim here, is to add years of life to patients who otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity.”
Colleagues called Dr. Mamary a “physician’s physician” and noted his “amazing intelligence and clinical acumen” in tributes. Gerard J. Criner, chair of Temple’s Department of Thoracic Medicine and Surgery, said: “His patients loved him not only for his clinical skills but also for the warmth, compassion, and humanity he brought to every encounter.”
A former patient said online: “He was a calm in the storm of my end stage disease. … The world has lost a hero.”
A former student said: “His kindness, thorough and balanced approach to medicine, and quiet, thoughtful approach to even the most stressful emergencies reminded me of a Jedi master.”
Dr. Mamary and his wife, CeilaSue, married in 1996.Courtesy of the family
Away from the hospital, Dr. Mamary liked to bike, hike, and camp. He built his own 18-foot mahogany canoe, walked the entire 272-mile Long Trail in Vermont, and won masters bicycling championship races.
He also painted and sculpted, and earned a bachelor’s degree in art and psychology at Haverford College. He and his wife, CeliaSue, initiated the Shortridge Memorial Park Arboretum in Wynnewood and earned a 2024 community service award from Narberth and Lower Merion officials.
“James brought wisdom, kindness, curiosity, and genuine joy to every moment,” his wife said.
Albert James Mamary was born June 12, 1967, in Hempstead, N.Y. He grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., became an Eagle Scout, and was a wilderness river guide for the Boy Scouts in Maine during his college years.
Dr. Mamary was an avid bicyclist and won masters championship races. Courtesy of the family
He met CeliaSue Jaffe in class at Haverford, and they married in 1996 and had daughters HannahRose and LilyRuth. They lived in East Falls and Wynnewood, and he rode his bike from home to Penn and then Temple as often as he could.
Dr. Mamary enjoyed traveling, baking, cooking, and gardening. “His specialty is fruits and vegetables, and I grow the flowers,” his wife said.
He followed the Phillies, rescued cats and dogs, and doted on his daughters. Everybody said he was funny and silly.
“He was curious and always learning or doing something new,” his daughter LilyRuth said. “He took joy in simple things.” His daughter HannahRose said: “Even if he wasn’t my dad I would want him as a friend because he was so interesting and so easy to talk to.”
Dr. Mamary was a wilderness river guide for the Boy Scouts in Maine during his college years.Courtesy of the family
Dr. Mamary was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, bile duct cancer, in 2020 and treated by longtime colleagues and friends at Temple, some of whom he had mentored. “It was a profound reflection of the life he lived,” his family said, “that so many of those he had taught ultimately became his caregivers.”
His wife said: “He was a very vibrant and adventurous person but so thoughtful, steady, and reliable. James was incredible.”
The Cheltenham school board said it would review safety procedures and assess the culture in all of its athletic programs as it pledged to rebuild community trust after an explosive grand jury report condemned the district’s response to the assaults of a football player last season in a high school locker room.
The attacks on the 15-year-old, which took place in August and September 2025, “arose in the context of a culture of intimidation and acceptance of violence,” board president Leah Mulhearn said Tuesday night at the board’s first meeting since criminal charges were announced against four coaches and six players.
Mulhearn, who also announced that veteran educator Chris McGinley would be tapped as interim superintendent, promised the board would move quickly to fix problems.
The district already canceled the 2026 football season in May. “Football will not return until we address this, no matter how long it takes,” Mulhearn said.
Parents, who lined up behind a microphone in the district’s administration building awaiting their turn to speak, expressed skepticism and demanded more from the board after a grand jury report accused the district of endangering students through a failed response to the assaults, one of which was captured on video.
In emotional comments, some parents said their children had been assaulted in the schools, while others questioned how they could believe the board, when they had warned against hiring a coach who has since been charged with conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child.
“We entrusted our children to this district,” said Chowan Cowans, who withdrew her son, a rising senior and former Cheltenham football player, because “I don’t feel safe with him being there anymore.”
Cowans accused the district of a lack of transparency, which “has to mean something when the truth is uncomfortable,” she said.
PTO president Stephanie Curry (center) waits in line to speak during the Cheltenham School Board meeting in Elkins Park on Tuesday, August 11, 2026. The school board was meeting for the first time since criminal charges against four football coaches and six players were announced, and since Brian Scriven resigned as superintendent. .Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Employees at the high school appeared to minimize the Sept. 3 assault after it was reported to them by the 15-year-old victim’s mother, according to the grand jury report. They also took the head coach, Terence Tolbert, at his word that he had not instructed the player not to tell his parents what happened, and they included the coach in their investigation — which failed to uncover that there were two assaults, the report said.
It also noted that employees were also confused about their mandatory reporting requirements.
On Tuesday, Mulhearn said that while the board “may differ with the grand jury with respect to some of its findings about how the district and board responded, the hard truth is that we must acknowledge that mistakes were made.”
Mulhearn said the board would “move with deliberate speed to address these issues.” She said the board would enlist an outside attorney, Leigh Dalton — who was hired by the Central Bucks School District last year to investigate special-education abuse allegations — to review the district’s policies and procedures and make recommendations within 60 days.
She did not comment on Superintendent Brian Scriven’s resignation last week. Some parents questioned whether and when the board’s position on Scriven had shifted, after the board praised the superintendent’s leadership in May.
A district spokesperson did not respond to a question this week about whether Scriven, who received a new five-year contract in December, would receive any payout following his resignation.
Nor did the board indicate whether it was considering taking action against any employees at the high school. One parent, for instance, asked whether Mark Hoff, the former vice principal at Cheltenham High School, would still become the vice principal at Wyncote Elementary, in light of the grand jury report faulting high school employees.
Taryn Knox (left) speaks to School Board President Leah Mulhearn and Director of Business Joshua Sweigard during the Cheltenham School Board meeting in Elkins Park on Tuesday, August 11, 2026. The school board was meeting for the first time since criminal charges against four football coaches and six players were announced, and since Brian Scriven resigned as superintendent. .Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The board, which appointed director of business services Joshua Sweigard acting superintendent on Tuesday, will hold a special meeting next week to appoint McGinley as interim superintendent, Mulhearn said. McGinley previously led both the Cheltenham and Lower Merion districts and more recently served on the Philadelphia School Reform Commission and Philadelphia school board. His most recent position was as the faculty program coordinator of the Educational Leadership and Policy program at Temple University.
Parents’ pleas
Parents urged the board to commit to more steps. In a joint statement, the United Parents Group, the Special Education Alliance of Cheltenham, and the Cheltenham African American Alliance called for numerous actions, including a community town hall ahead of the first day of school and an assembly on the first day “to enforce a zero-tolerance policy regarding sexual harassment, bullying and hazing.” They also called for safety data to be a part of every school board meeting.
“We are demanding a fundamental shift in how our school district operates,” Aubria Nance, reading from the groups’ joint statement, told the board.
“Every time I hear a commitment to our students’ safety, I want to see the proof,” said Erin Fadako, a parent at the school.
The Inquirer reported last week that some football parents had urged the district not to hire Tolbert, saying he had allowed bullying while previously serving as head coach in Abington, where he left after one season.
“Everyone from the administration on down that has failed these students, you all have approved them to be hired here,” said Taryn Knox, who was among the football parents who had asked the district not to hire Tolbert.
After a year of negative news coverage, Knox said, “we’re now about to go into the next school year, and the news is still here.”
The Cheltenham school board meeting Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in Elkins Park.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
As they voiced their frustration, parents pleaded with the board to make real changes.
“Stop being risk averse and do what you need to do to make it safe for our children,” said Stephanie Curry, president of the high school’s parent teacher organization. “Our kids are the ones that are suffering.”
Janet Klein, 96, of Rydal, Montgomery County, former member of the Philadelphia Historical Commission, historic program director for the Fairmount Park Commission, regional project coordinator for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, chair of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, volunteer, and philanthropist, died Tuesday, Aug. 4, of age-associated decline at her home.
Born in Philadelphia, Mrs. Klein earned degrees at Philadelphia High School for Girls and the University of Pennsylvania. She and her husband, Lewis, traveled the world after they married in 1952, and she told The Inquirer in 1973 that she became interested in local historic preservation after returning from abroad in 1964.
“I felt something was lacking here,” she said. “There was no pride nor a thorough knowledge of what we really have in Philadelphia to share with visitors.”
So she joined the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s tour guide program, rose to chair of guides for the Fairmount Park house tours, and conducted hundreds of tours for thousands of visitors to the eight historic houses in the park. “The guides,” she said in 1973, “can’t help but sense that somehow they have passed on to the visitors the continuing life of historic Philadelphia.”
Eventually, Mrs. Klein became historic program director for the Fairmount Park Commission, was appointed to the Philadelphia Historical Commission by then-Mayor Wilson Goode in the 1980s, and served as chair of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission from 1997 to 2003. Friends called her “formidable” and compared her to the Energizer Bunny.
Keen to spark public interest in historic sites, Mrs. Klein forged partnerships between site officials and schools, community groups, businesses, and the media. In 1997, she oversaw filmmakers as they shot scenes for the movie Beloved at the Landis Valley Museum in Manheim Township.
She appeared often in The Inquirer and said in 1989: “We often find that people who live just around the corner from a house museum don’t know it existed.”
At Fairmount Park, she redefined the commission’s operating procedures and enlisted students as volunteers at its public mansions. At the city historical commission, she led walking tours of Old City and helped determine the historic designation of the old Lit Bros. building, the Boyd Theatre, the Dilworth house, and other significant structures.
This story and photo of Mrs. Klein (right) was published in The Inquirer in 1973.Newspapers.com
With the state historical and museum commission, she erected historical markers across the state, helped designate the Art Museum as a Commonwealth Treasure in 2002, and directed the commission’s public relations, tourist promotions, and preservation efforts.
“History doesn’t have to be dead,” she said in 1998. “Historical markers represent the people and their interests. They are a way for young people to learn about their heritage and gain a personal respect for the past.”
She also led the Comprehensive Historic Assistance Program for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the 1980s, helped create the Liberty Trail near Independence Hall, and directed the restoration of the first historic home in the Lukens National Historic District of Coatesville.
She served on the board of visitors at Temple University’s Ambler campus and Klein College of Media and Communications, on the collections committee at the Union League, and as a guide at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. She was active with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Museum Council of Philadelphia, and other groups.
This story and photo of Mrs. Klein appeared in The Inquirer in 1998.Temple University
She was honored for her service by the Women’s Center of Montgomery County in 1999 and by the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia in 2001, and was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 2000. In 2018, she earned an award for service and philanthropy from Coatesville’s National Iron and Steel Heritage Museum.
As philanthropists, Mrs. Klein and her husband supported what became, named after them, the Klein College at Temple, the National Association of Television Program Executives, the Police Athletic League, the American Heart Association, and other organizations dedicated to education, healthcare, youth development, and social service. They created the Janet and Lew Klein Making A Difference Award for the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters and donated his professional papers to Temple.
“She was an inspirational community leader,” said David Boardman, dean of Temple’s Klein College, “who inspired others through her generosity, her brilliance, and her warmth.”
Janet Surman was born March 3, 1930. She grew up in Oak Lane and earned a bachelor’s degree at Penn.
Mrs. Klein (left) appeared with others in 2007 to celebrate a historical marker at the corner of 9th and Christian Streets.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
She met Lewis Klein in college, and they married in 1952. They had a son, Stephen, and a daughter, Ellen, and lived in Melrose Park and Rydal. Her husband, a pioneering TV broadcaster and cofounder of Gateway Communications, died in 2019.
Mrs. Klein and her husband traveled the world for decades and attended dozens of galas and fundraising events. She enjoyed gardening, was an avid reader, and liked to play Scrabble.
In 1993, Inquirer columnist Clark DeLeon called her “a wonderful, funny, vivacious lady.” Temple’s Boardman said: “She was truly one of the best human beings I’ve ever had the privilege to know.”
In addition to her children, Mrs. Klein is survived by a granddaughter, two great-grandchildren, and other relatives.
Hours before Mohamed Coulibaly was found dead in his Gloucester County home, one of his alleged victims said, the 23-year-old entrepreneur had been desperately seeking a $75,000 loan.
A recent Barron’s investigation alleged Coulibaly defrauded three former NFL players out of $1 million in an e-commerce scheme involving fake Shopify stores. Now others who invested in the venture or lent Coulibaly money were blowing up his phone. They wanted to know if Jalen Carter and several former members of the Eagles, including Nakobe Dean and Terrell Edmunds, were even real clients, a claim Coulibaly made on promotional materials.
Above all, these people wanted their money back.
The morning of his death, July 31, Coulibaly solicited money from a New York man, who agreed to speak with The Inquirer on the condition of anonymity to protect his family’s privacy. He is one of at least 10 people, including the three former NFL players, alleging Coulibaly scammed them out of more than $5 million through phony investments over the last year.
Coulibaly, who lived in Mullica Hill, a section of Harrison Township, promised to send a Lamborghini, two gold Rolexes, and a signed Lionel Messi cleat as collateral for what was to be a weeklong loan.
Coulibaly still owed the man $1 million for a bridge loan due in March. Yet he insisted the additional loan somehow would make it possible to return the initial money owed. His alleged victim said he figured he could only gain from the arrangement — if the collateral proved to be real.
But a driver — not in a Lamborghini — arrived at his doorstep with two fake watches, an unauthenticated signed cleat, along with an insurance card and a bill of sale for the promised luxe car, according to the man.
The man called off the loan.
“[Coulibaly] then started to cry hysterical on the phone,” the victim said. “He said, ‘I’ve lost it all, please help me here, please help me here.’”
Coulibaly was found dead later that day.
Mohamed Coulibaly attends Milan Fashion Week on Jan. 19 in Milan, Italy.Dave Benett/Getty Images
The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office is leading the investigation into Coulibaly’s death and declined to comment. No charges have been filed in connection to the alleged scams Coulibaly is accused of spearheading.
Coulibaly’s death has only added a layer of uncertainty for his allegedly defrauded clients, who now believe they were unwitting participants in a Ponzi scheme. New so-called investments went toward paying off other clients. But the chain could not be sustained.
“In terms of his death, it sounds rather brash or harsh, but the only reason I’m upset for his passing is that he’s not able to go to jail and suffer,” the bridge loan investor said.
The Inquirer spoke with four victims, all but one of whom asked to remain anonymous citing lingering shame, privacy concerns, and, in one case, safety considerations. They provided alleged contracts Coulibaly gave them, text messages, screenshots of their purported Shopify store sales, and a whistleblower report sent to federal and Pennsylvania financial regulators.
In hindsight, the business always seemed too good to be true. The young entrepreneur convinced them they could rake in millions each month selling vacuums, printers, desktop humidifiers, and silicone trays on Shopify, an e-commerce platform similar to Amazon.
At first, investors said they had no reason to question Vent Motion LLC, also known as Motion Venture. Shopify alerted the victims to a steady stream of sales through their phone apps.
But at least two Shopify stores victims bought into were fake, full of transactions a Barron’s analysis suggests are also a sham. Shopify did not respond to requests for comment.
The alleged victims say Coulibaly lured them in by highlighting purported investor relationships with wealthy and connected people. His pitch deck listed several former members of the Eagles and the NBA as clients. Representatives for the current and former Eagles declined to comment or could not be reached.
“A selling point [Coulibaly] gave me was, ‘Hey, we only have about 90 to 100 people in this,’ insinuating you can make it behind the velvet rope because everybody involved is celebrities or athletes, and this is just a venture they do,” said another of the defrauded investors, requesting anonymity because family and friends do not know about the scam.
Yet as more victims have found one another in the wake of Coulibaly’s death, it has become clearer the scheme was not limited to targeting NFL players.
It involved everyday investors from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New York who now want to know if any of it was real.
A ‘magnetic’ man with the digital footprint of a business phenom
Coulibaly knew how to sell the image of a successful entrepreneur.
His story always hit the same beats: Coulibaly was a professional soccer player. He made $4 million reselling rare sneakers before he turned 21. His success was largely attributed to “building connections” with athletes and influencers. Grinding was the key to success.
But much of that was embellished.
A database for American high school sports coverage noted Coulibaly played soccer for Roxborough High School.
Coulibaly said he began his professional career with the New York Red Bulls soccer team, but a spokesperson said Coulibaly never had a contract.
A friend from Coulibaly’s days at Temple University said the sneaker venture Heatkickcity was also a scam that swindled students out of thousands. He asked not to be named out of safety concerns, saying Coulibaly often touted relationships with gang-affiliated people.
While Coulibaly told publications he was born in Mali, West Africa, and immigrated to the United States at a young age, while in college, he often intimated that he was a trust fund child and that his parents worked for the French government, the Temple friend said.
He added that may have helped induce so many of their peers to pay a $1,200 membership for monthly access to rare sneakers that ultimately never came.
“He’d be like, ‘It’s stuck in shipping,’ or ‘my assistant forgot to order them,’ or ‘my assistant’s slacking,’ and then he would just keep on extending it, extending it,” said the friend. “If you questioned him in any way, shape, or form about the product that you paid for, then he would switch to angry mode.”
The friend eventually got his money back after pressuring him for weeks but said Coulibaly continued his self-proclaimed pursuit of becoming a billionaire.
“He scammed his best friends,” the friend said. “Nobody was off-limits.”
Coulibaly’s next venture was fashion line Motion Apparelz. It was profiled in Forbes last year, where the author describes Coulibaly’s energy as “magnetic.” In the piece, Coulibaly name-drops artist friends, including rapper YG, who was later listed as an investor in Motion Venture promotional materials.
Rapper YG performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in 2019.Amy Harris
YG’s agent could not be reached for comment.
Outside of the glowing profiles, a now-defunct Instagram account also detailed a lavish lifestyle full of run-ins with celebrities, boat jaunts on luxury yachts with city skylines in the background, and snapshots of Coulibaly in or in front of private planes. Often, Coulibaly could be seen wearing gold watches, what appear to be Van Cleef & Arpels bracelets, and diamond-studded chains.
Coulibaly’s digital footprint set the stage for an even bigger business pitch.
A business promising exorbitant returns
When it came to Vent Motion LLC, Coulibaly told clients he operated “factories in China and India with a combined team of 125 full-time employees,” according to a pitch deck he showed investors that was obtained by The Inquirer.
This allowed stores to operate without keeping any inventory and reducing overhead — a model known as drop-shipping.
The savings from eliminating the middlemen, he said, could then be reinvested into artificial intelligence-driven ads and “influencer amplification” to drum up more customers. Coulibaly’s company would set up and manage the Shopify stores on behalf of investors, pushing out additional advertising or swapping out products if sales slowed.
Clients would be charged a 20% to 25% service fee for that work, and even so, Coulibaly dangled extraordinary returns for those who joined the venture.
One Shopify store that began with a $550,000 investment in January 2024 had allegedly generated $2 million in revenue in April and a whopping $23 million in July of that year. By August, this particular store had generated a total of $84 million in revenue, according to the company’s unsubstantiated pitch deck.
Further sweetening the deal was an initial investment “protection” guarantee if their store did not generate profit within six months.
Former Arizona Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim says he was just as much of victim of Mohammed Coulibaly’s alleged scam.Darryl Webb
It’s what got Steve Keim, former general manager of the Arizona Cardinals, into the business.
Keim said he met Coulibaly through mutual Eagles acquaintances and by August 2025 he had bought his first Shopify store, which was recording sales at a pace that had him on track totriple his investment over six months. Keim bought into six more stores the following month, he said. His son and ex-wife would also buy into the business for at least a $1 million investment between all three.
Keim said he was soon offered the role of chief operating officer/chief growth officer, which he now sees as a way for Coulibaly to “legitimize his business.”
“I introduced him to people to sell stores to and that sort of thing,” said Keim, who describes fulfilling a figurehead role with no decision-making power. “He called me the COO but he also made promises to give me health insurance and to have some kind of bonus structure.”
The health insurance, bonuses, and exorbitant returns never materialized. Keim said he never had access to bank records and was never made aware of how many people gave money to Motion Venture. But by the start of the year, Keim claims, a flood of disgruntled investors were asking him for help getting their money back. Around this time, Keim said, he asked Coulibaly to stop using his name in promotional materials and told him he no longer wanted to be COO.
Keim contended he was as much of a victim as anyone else, holding onto hope that he could recover his money until Coulibaly’s death.
“This went downhill fast,” he said. “Not only did I get my name drug through the mud, I lost a lot of money since I was an investor.”
A Dubai deal
As more investors were demanding access to their Shopify funds in the fall, Coulibaly was telling them that the Dubai firm Middle East Venture Partners was interested in buying the operation for $215 million.
All they had to do was reach 175 online stores and meet other benchmarks by Aug. 1.
To back his claim Coulibaly produced a letter of intent dated Aug. 14, 2024.
Troubling for investors: The letter was dated more than a month before the company was registered in Pennsylvania.
The discrepancy was the biggest red flag for Barry Minkow, a convicted fraudster who now investigates scams on behalf of fraud victims. He started poking around the company at the start of the year for an investor who had put up $150,000.
“So here you are looking at a private equity company saying they’re going to buy up this company that doesn’t even exist for $200 million?” Minkow said in disbelief.
Middle East Venture Partners did not respond to an email to asking if a relationship existed with Coulibaly’s Vent Motion LLC.
With the permission of three of the alleged victims, Minkow submitted a 23-page whistleblower report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, FBI, and Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The report laid out victim accounts and flagged glaring issues with Motion Venture’s business model.
Minkow warned regulators in February thatintervention was essential to “halt ongoing solicitations, trace misallocated funds,” and stressed the importance of doing so “before the scheme inflicts further, irreparable harm.”
Minkow would prove to be right. Motion Venture was still actively recruiting new investors that month.
Picking up the pieces
Coulibaly’s college friend thinks he might have been one of the first victims of the Shopify sometime about three years ago. It involved less paperwork back then, more of a handshake deal. The friend put in $5,000 in a store with an investment protection promise in place, he said. Unlike that time in college, however, the friend only got half his money back.
The friendship with Coulibaly cooled after that.
“People just keep on saying he scammed NFL players,” said Coulibaly’s college friend. “No, anybody with money could be scammed, no matter how small.”
Coulibaly would insist money issues were the Dubai firm’s fault until his death, according to his alleged victims who shared screenshots and voice memos of conversations.
He ricocheted from distraught, lamenting the financial ruin that awaited him if he did not acquire more investors, to defiant, celebrating the Philadelphia 76ers’ LeBron James trade on X as he dodged investors.
When Keim and another investor flew into Philadelphia to meet with Coulibaly in late July, they spent a day and a half trying to figure out how much money was left, to no avail.
It was around that time that Coulibaly was soliciting the New York man for the $75,000 loan.
Coulibaly’s last post on X was a reshare a day before his death. “Trying to be everyone’s friend is a foolish behavior,” it read.
Whether any investor money remains is unclear. A now-defunct GoFundMe page put together by a man claiming to be Coulibaly’s brother raised more than $12,000 for the body’s “international transportation arrangements.”
Investors are also trying to figure out what legal recourse they might have, if any.
Coulibaly’s death has shattered any last remaining hope some victims had that a Dubai firm was to blame for cash-flow issues, and they are now seeking legal help.
It also left them feeling cheated one last time.
Staff writer Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
A 61-year-old woman was shot and killed in North Philadelphia after a shooting Sunday night.
Philadelphia Police Department officers responded to the 2800 block of N. 24th Street around 11:49 p.m. for a report of a person with a gun. Officers found Michelle Wilson, 61, on a porch suffering from gunshot wounds to the neck and back. Wilson was transported to Temple University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 12:04 a.m. on Monday.
A second person, a 67-year-old man, was found on the same porch suffering from gunshot wounds to his backside. Police transported the man to Temple University Hospital and was placed in stable condition.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Homicide Unit at 215-686-3334 or call the PPD tip line at 215-686-8477. As with all homicides in the city of Philadelphia, there is a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
This section of North Philadelphia has already experienced two fatal shootings this summer in June, according to the most recent data supplied by the City Controller, and in that same month, a 16-year-old was shot and injured one block from where Sunday night’s shooting occurred.
According to police, at least seven shootings occurred this past weekend, including the fatal shooting of 70-year-old Felix Serrano, who was found shot in the chest while sitting in his car near Hunting Park.
The father of a Philadelphia man who was killed in an ATV crash this spring said police officers pursued his son moments before he drove the wrong way down a one-way street, ran a red light, and collided with a sedan.
Sterling Jones, 22, was killed on May 9 after the crash in North Philadelphia, according to police.
Lawyers for Jones’ father, Sterling Lamont Jones Sr., said his son and a group of friends had been riding off-road vehicles near Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue when officers from the police ATV and dirt bike detail spotted the young men popping wheelies and began a pursuit.
They followed Jones up Broad Street to West Thompson Street, the attorneys said. There he briefly sped in the wrong direction down the one-way street and ran a red light before striking an Uber driver’s Toyota sedan at the intersection as it turned onto 15th Street.
He was taken to Temple University Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.
Sterling Jones Sr., 57, has since hired a team of attorneys to investigate the incident. Late last month, they filed a notice of intent to sue the city, alleging that the officers and the department violated Jones’ constitutional rights when they chased him and caused his fatal injuries.
Sterling Jones, a 22-year-old who lawyers say was killed in an ATV crash after being chased by police officers.Courtesy of Sterling Lamont Jones Sr.
Riding ATVs and dirt bikes on public streets in Philadelphia is against the law, and police have increased efforts to crack down on that behavior in recent years.
But the incident raises questions about whether the officers followed a department directive barring vehicular pursuits for all but the most serious offenses — a policy enacted because of the public safety risks posed by such chases, particularly in densely populated areas.
The initial police account of the incident did not mention that officers had been pursuing Jones before the crash. It could not be learned whether the department had since concluded that officers were engaged in a pursuit and whether it was conducted a high rate of speed, as the lawyers contend.
Sgt. Eric Gripp, a police spokesperson, said the incident is under investigation by the department’s internal affairs bureau. He declined to comment further, referring questions to the city’s law department.
A spokesperson for the law department said the city does not comment on pending litigation.
Surveillance footage gathered by lawyers for Jones’ father and viewed by The Inquirer showed at least eight police officers on dirt bikes, a squad car, and a tow vehicle tailing Jones that evening.
Around 9:23 p.m., Jones was seen cutting through a Sunoco gas station and speeding down West Thompson Street with dirt bike officers close behind. Within seconds, his ATV careened into the driver’s side of the sedan.
Under police department policy, vehicular chases are allowed only in situations in which officers believe they can prevent imminent danger to others, or if a suspect is either fleeing after committing a violent felony or in possession of a deadly weapon used in a crime.
And while riding off-road vehicles violates city code, attorneys for Sterling Jones Sr. say that type of infraction still should not trigger a police chase.
“The police department’s policy is, in our view, clearly violated,” said Thomas Kline of Kline & Specter, which is handling the case alongside the firm Hill & Associates.
A 2025 Inquirer investigation found police in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania were conducting hazardous and unnecessary chases, disproportionately endangering young people. Roughly half of all reported pursuits conducted by city police were not justified under department policy, the investigation found.
A police department spokesperson attributed the increase in chases to the COVID-era surge in violent crime, and said the department investigates every crash for policy violations.
Between 2020 and last year, records show, the city had paid out $20 million in crash- or chase-related settlements as a result of such chases.
In 2017, a 6-year-old girl and her great-aunt were seriously injured when they were struck by a dirt bike rider who was being chased by Philadelphia police into Upper Darby Township. The city settled a lawsuit with their attorneys for nearly $3 million last year.
Sterling Jones Sr. said that while he was planning to sue, no amount of money could make up for the loss of his son.
The young man was a graduate of Hunting Park Christian Academy and had been working for two years as a delivery driver for the U.S. Postal Service before his death. He had bought the ATV with money from that job, his father said.
“He wasn’t a criminal. He had a license,” he said.
Jones Sr. learned of the crash in the early morning of Mother’s Day, when his son’s mother came to his house to tell him Jones was dead.
He said he hired lawyers with the aim of ensuring that the officers who pursued his son would be reprimanded and removed from the beat.
“They killed my only son,” he said. “I just want justice.”
