MIAMI – 5 folks have pleaded responsible in South Florida to collaborating in a wire fraud scheme that established an unlawful shortcut for aspiring nurses to get accredited and uncover work.
Krystal Lopez and Damian Lopez, both equally of Palm Seaside County, Florida Francois Legagneur, of Nassau County, New York Reynoso Seide, of Union County, N ew Jersey and Yelva Saint Preux, of Suffolk County, N.Y. pleaded responsible past Wednesday in Miami federal court docket to wire fraud conspiracy. They just about every deal with up to 20 years in jail at a July 27 hearing.
A complete of 25 men and women ended up charged before this 12 months in a fraud that marketed more than 7,600 fraudulent nursing degree diplomas from a few Florida-primarily based nursing universities, according to grand jury indictments. The faculties associated — Siena College or university, Palm Beach front School of Nursing and Sacred Heart International Institute — are now closed.
During guilty plea hearings, Damian Lopez, Legagneur, Seide and Saint Preux admitted to soliciting and recruiting folks who sought nursing credentials that would allow them to get the job done as registered, accredited practical or vocational nurses. Krystal Lopez admitted that, in her part as the Palm Seashore Faculty of Nursing’s finance director, she processed applications for individuals who were issued fraudulent nursing college diplomas and transcripts and that each individual pupil paid the faculty $15,000 for the documents.
The bogus diplomas and transcripts competent those who acquired them to sit for the national nursing board examination. If they passed, they were in a position to get hold of licenses and work opportunities in many states, prosecutors claimed.
About 2,400 of the 7,600 college students eventually passed their licensing tests — predominantly in New York, federal officials explained. Nurses accredited in New York are allowed to exercise in Florida and lots of other states. A lot of of all those people today may well eliminate their certification but possible will not likely be criminally billed, federal officials reported.
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