Temat: Whistleblowers share $1.8 million in for-profit school...

Five whistleblowers who alleged a chain of for-profit schools admitted unqualified students and created fake high school diplomas for them will split $1.8 million as part of a False Claims Act settlement.

Education Affiliates (EA), based in White Marsh, Maryland, agreed to pay $13 million to the United States to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, the DOJ said.

EA operates 50 campuses in the United States under various trade names -- including All State Career, Fortis Institute, Fortis College, Tri-State Business Institute Inc., Technical Career Institute Inc., Capps College Inc., Driveco CDL Learning Center, Denver School of Nursing, and Saint Paul’s School of Nursing.

The five whistleblowers are splitting about $1.8 million.

The suits, which the DOJ took over, alleged that employees at EA’s All State Career campus in Baltimore "altered admissions test results so as to admit unqualified students, created false or fraudulent high school diplomas and falsified students’ federal aid applications."

The suits also alleged that multiple EA schools referred prospective students to "diploma mills" to obtain invalid online high school diplomas.

Two All State Careers admission representatives, Barry Sugarman and Jesse Moore, and a test proctor, Jacqueline Caldwell, pleaded guilty in 2013 to conspiring to defraud a federal financial aid program for students.

Moore was sentenced to probation for four years and fined $2,000.

Sugarman received two years probation and a $5,000 fine, and Caldwell was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release.

Last week's settlement also resolved allegations related to EA schools in Birmingham, Alabama, Houston, and Cincinnati, including violations of the ban on incentive compensation for enrollment personnel, misrepresentations of graduation and job placement rates, alteration of attendance records, and enrollment of unqualified students, the DOJ said.

“Using fake high school diplomas is a particularly insidious abuse of the federal student aid system,” Kathleen Tighe of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General said.

“Students received only a worthless piece of paper,” Tighe said.

See: http://www.fcpablog.com/blog/2015/7/23/whistleblowers-...