Federal authorities have arrested 25 people accused of operating a multi-million dollar scheme based in South Florida that sold fake nursing school degrees to thousands of people.
The defendants are accused of operating and recruiting for three nursing schools — Sacred Heart Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Sienna College of Health in Lauderhill and Palm Beach School of Nursing in West Palm Beach — in a scam that sold more than 7,600 fraudulent nursing diplomas, officials announced at a news conference Wednesday. All three schools have been shut down.
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WATCH HERE"The deeply concerning allegations at the center of this investigation goes against the very tenets of the nursing profession," said U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe.
Prosecutors alleged the schools prepared and sold fake transcripts to nursing candidates, knowing the candidates would use the documents to sit for the national nursing board exam. If they passed, they were able to obtain licenses and jobs in various states.
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“Not only is this a public safety concern, it also tarnishes the reputation of nurses who actually complete the demanding clinical and course work required to obtain their professional licenses and employment,” Lapointe said in a statement.
Authorities said the schools had been selling the fake nursing diplomas since 2016 at $15,000 each, netting them more than $114 million.
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Investigators said that about 2,400 of the 7,600 students who obtained a fake degree eventually passed their licensing exams — mainly in New York. Nurses certified in New York are allowed to practice in Florida and many other states.
The selling and purchasing of nursing diplomas and transcripts to “willing but unqualified individuals" is a crime that “potentially endangers the health and safety of patients and insults the honorable profession of nursing,” said Special Agent in Charge Omar Pérez Aybar. Pérez said investigators have not found, however, that any of the nurses caused harm to patients.
"The most important thing for us was to make sure, to the extent we’re talking about healthcare, is that we stop the bleeding," Lapointe said. "What do we learn when somebody gets injured? Stop the bleeding. The bleeding here is to stop those schools from being able to put more fraudulent diplomas out in the public sphere."
The defendants were charged with conspiring to and committing wire fraud, prosecutors said. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison. Many of those people may lose their certification but likely won't be criminally charged, federal officials said.
The FBI and Health and Human Services Inspector General worked jointly on the investigation, dubbed "Operation Nightingale, in honor of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.
