Hers was the kind of rise through the academic ranks that could have epitomized the American dream, if not for the way she crashed. Fresh from Taiwan in 1975, she enrolled at St. John’s University as a student in Asian studies, becoming a dean in just five years and, soon after, winning the ear of the university’s top echelon as she raised more than $20 million for the school.

But the dean, Cecilia Chang, fought her way up driven by the same ambition and greed that would pull her down, accused of stealing more than $1 million from the school and using foreign scholarship students as her personal servants, prosecutors said during a three-week trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

Hours after Dr. Chang took the stand in a desperate attempt to try to explain her actions, she was found dead in her multimillion-dollar home in Queens, one of the prizes of her swift ascent. Investigators said they believed she had committed suicide.

Dr. Chang’s lawyers had tried to reach her on Tuesday, and when they could not, they called her son and suggested he call the police. He did, and officers entered the home and discovered her body.