As part of a plot to sell fake nursing degrees, a guy from Maryland is being charged with federal conspiracy.
The office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland just recently said that Ejike Asiegbunam is being charged with conspiracy. They say that he made more than $1.6 million in what they call a “scheme to defraud.”
Court records show that Asiegbunam owned and ran a nursing school in Florida and a school in Maryland that helped students prepare for the nursing test. Between 2018 and 2021, the feds say Asiegbunam and three others “conspired to provide purchasers with false and fraudulent RN degrees” from the Florida nursing school.
In the document, U.S. Attorney Erek Barron says that Asiegbunam took thousands of dollars from students to “complete required prerequisites” so that the students could get into that nursing school. Assailant for the United States says Asiegbunam charged buyers between $15,000 and $22,000 for fake nursing school papers and up to $5,000 to finish online requirements.
The feds also say he worked with a woman named Johanah Napoleon to sell fake nursing degrees from Florida’s Palm Beach School of Nursing to people in Maryland and New York. News4 was able to confirm from Napoleon’s lawyer that she had previously pleaded guilty to plot in Florida in connection with a case involving a fake nursing degree.
The court papers don’t name the test prep company or nursing school that the feds say Asiegbunam ran, but in 2021, local students who took online classes from Asiegbunam’s Jay College of Health Sciences told the News4 I-Team that they were worried.
When students were asked about it at the time, they said they lost a lot of money when the school shut down suddenly that year.
The I-Team looked into this for months and found that Florida officials gave Jay College permission to teach classes in person and temporary emergency permission to offer programs online because of the pandemic. However, state education officials said the college has not been given permission to offer distance learning to students across the country.
At the time, officials from higher education in Maryland told I-Team that Jay College did not have the necessary permissions to offer nursing programs to students in Maryland, either online or in person.
The I-Team also found that local graduates wouldn’t be able to take Maryland’s nurse licensing exams. This is because the Maryland Board of Nursing did not approve Jay College as an in-state or out-of-state program, even though some states’ nursing boards recognize degrees from the school.
A woman from Montgomery County, Maryland, said, “I chose this school because it was online.”
She said that she had only been in the practical nursing school for a few months before it was suddenly canceled in 2021. Out of fear of what would happen, she asked News4 not to use her name.
She said, “It was just so terrible that all of that happened and how it happened.”
When that report was made, both Asiegbunam and his school were asked to speak several times, but neither responded. His lawyer wouldn’t say anything about the federal plot case on Wednesday.
The U.S. attorney’s office said in the filing that if Asiegbunam is found guilty, they will ask him to give back at least $1.6 million.
