WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - A for-profit education company will pay the U.S. government $13 million for allegedly filing false claims for federal student aid, said Benjamin Mizer, U.S. principal deputy assistant attorney general, on June 24.
Mizer said Education Affiliates, based in White Marsh, Md., was accused of violating the False Claims Act when it submitted for federal student aid to the U.S. Department of Education for students who were enrolled in its programs. The company runs about 50 campuses across the country under various names, Mizer said.
“Today’s settlement is an excellent example of cooperation among multiple offices of the federal government to achieve a result that protects federal student aid funding and the interests of individual students,” Mizer said. “Schools have an obligation to live up to their commitment to the government and their students when they accept federal student aid funds.”
The lawsuit against Education Affiliates claimed the Baltimore-based campus, All State Career, created fraudulent high school diplomas, falsified federal aid applications for students, and altered admissions test results in order to admit unqualified students. Admission representatives at the college, Barry Sugarman and Jesse Moore, as well as test proctor, Jacqueline Caldwell, were criminally charged and convicted as a result of the activity, Mizer said.