Federal agents arrest slew of suspects in Florida nursing school diploma scam

Federal agents on Wednesday arrested about 25 suspects accused of selling fabricated nursing degrees to thousands of students who then used the bogus diplomas to take licensing exams in several states, including Florida, New York, New Jersey and Texas.

A network of nursing school operators, centered in South Florida, illegally charged each student between $10,000 for a licensed practical nurse degree and $17,000 for a registered nurse diploma — without requiring proper training, according to federal authorities and court records.

“Our healthcare professionals play an important role in our public health system,” U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe said at a news conference Wednesday. “We therefore expect our healthcare professionals to be who they claim they are. Specifically, when we talk about a nurse’s education and credentials, shortcut is not a word we want to use.“

The scofflaw schools provided a “shortcut” for students to avoid taking a nearly two-year nursing program requiring clinical work, national exams and certification, while instructors coached them on taking the licensing exams to practice nursing in a number of states, authorities said.

Many of the students who purchased degrees were from South Florida’s Haitian-American community, including some with legitimate LPN licenses who wanted to become registered nurses. Other students were recruited from out of state to participate in the fraudulent nursing programs, authorities said.

An estimated 7,600 students paid a total of $114 million for phony nursing degrees from the South Florida schools and other suspect programs between 2016 and 2021. Of those, one-third, or about 2,400 students, ended up passing their licensing exams, mainly in New York, which imposes no limit on the number of times that students can take the exam. Nurses certified in New York have the ability to practice in other states, including Florida.

Now, those students who passed the nursing exams may lose their certification — though they won’t be criminally charged, according to federal authorities. Chad Yarbrough, the FBI’s acting special agent in charge in Miami, said the agency has notified nursing boards in all 50 states of every student who obtained a fake nursing degree and passed the exam.

Omar Perez Aybar, special agent in charge of Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General in Miami, described the alleged nursing school scam as an “affront to Florence Nightingale,” the founder of modern nursing.

Perez said that, despite obvious public concern, the investigation has found no harm caused by any suspect nurses to patients so far.

The investigation, aptly dubbed Operation Nightingale, began in 2019 with a tip from Maryland that led to an FBI undercover operation that initially targeted two Fort Lauderdale business people, Geralda Adrien and Woosvelt Predestin, who both pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. They cooperated with authorities and were sentenced to more than two years and three months in prison in 2022.

Adrien owned two private education companies, Docu-Flex & More and PowerfulU Health Care Services, where Predestin was an employee. Together they schemed with Siena College of Health/Siena Education Center in Lauderhill and Palm Beach School of Nursing in Lake Worth “to sell fraudulent diplomas and college transcripts,” according to court records. Also initially targeted: The Palm Beach School of Nursing’s president, Johanah Napoleon of West Palm Beach, who pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge, cooperated with authorities and is awaiting sentencing.

All three defendants reached plea agreements with Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Clark and helped investigators develop the bigger case, resulting in more than 20 new arrests. A couple of the cases were filed on Monday in federal courts in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

Among those newly charged: Eunide Sanon, owner of Siena College of Health/Siena Education Center, and Charles Etienne, president of Sacred Heart International in Fort Lauderdale. The court record did not list lawyers for Sanon and Etienne, so they could not be reached for comment.

According to one case, Sanon collaborated with Adrien, Predestin and others to sell about 2,016 “false and fraudulent diplomas and educational transcripts to” students that “falsely represented” they “had completed the necessary courses and/or clinical training to obtain nursing degrees from Siena.”

According to another case, Etienne collaborated with Adrien, Predestin and others to sell about 588 “false and fraudulent diplomas and educational transcripts” under the same circumstances.

In addition, three indictments charged 23 other people who had ownership interests, worked as employees or played the roles of recruiters for the South Florida nursing schools, including Palm Beach School of Nursing.

Court records show that In 2021, an undercover FBI employee met with Adrien at her Fort Lauderdale office, where she explained that a normal nursing school program lasts 22 months and can equate to four years at a large university. At the program, Adrien said she processed students through a nursing school that was on probation or closed, so the students appeared to be attending that school for a period of time.

Adrien offered the undercover employee a degree from the Palm Beach School of Nursing and training for a licensing exam in New York at a cost of $16,000, according to an FBI affidavit. The diploma would arrive in a matter of weeks. Adrien offered to fill out the application for the board certifications and complete the designated classes for the FBI undercover employee. She also created an account through an accredited nursing education website used in New York state and assigned the employee a password of “123456,” according to the FBI affidavit.

Adrien assured the undercover employee that the transcript and diploma from the nursing school would be ready for them in two weeks. The employee was instructed to fill out a nursing school application and backdate it to show that the form was completed in June 2016. Predestin also helped the undercover employee with the application for a license through New York’s state system. When the employee asked what nursing school to write on the form, Predestin said, “leave this for me.”

The undercover employee received the diploma on March 31, 2021 — 13 days after his initial meeting with Adrien. The document stated that the employee completed an associate degree in Science of Nursing with a 3.4 GPA on June 29, 2018. At one point, Adrien told the FBI undercover operative that she has students from even outside Florida who purchase degrees from her and that she has “a lot of people all over the place,” the affidavit said.

The Palm Beach school was previously licensed by the Florida Board of Nursing as a legitimate nursing education program, but its license was terminated in May 2017 due to low passing rates on the state certification exam.

The Siena nursing school also had its license placed on a probationary status in 2020 due to low passing rates on the certification exam.

Students who are looking to become registered nurses or licensed practical nurses need to show proof of graduation from an approved program and completion of the National Council Licensure Examination, according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Some states also require a criminal background check.

“The purpose of a professional license is to protect the public from harm by setting minimal qualifications and competencies for safe entry-level practitioners,” according to the NCSBN.