Trump hires student loan watchdog
NEWYORK — The Trump administration hired a longtime student loan industry executive to be the federal government’s top watchdog for the $1.5 trillion student loan market.
Robert Cameron will serve as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new student loan ombudsman, the bureau said Friday.
It’s a job designed to protect student loan borrowers from poor practices in the student loan industry and one of the few positions explicitly named in the DoddFrank Act, the law passed after the 2008 financial crisis that created the bureau. It’s considered the go-to office for borrowers who have complaints about their loans.
Mr. Cameron most recently worked at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, better known as FedLoan Servicing, as its head of compliance and risk mitigation. PHEAA has been cited for poor industry practices, most notably for how it has handled the troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a program designed to allow student loan borrowers who work in public service jobs to get part of their loan balances forgiven.
Organic food fraud
CEDARRAPIDS, Iowa — A judge on Friday sentenced the mastermind of the largest-known organic food fraud scheme in U.S. history to 10 years in prison, saying he cheated thousands of customers into buying products they didn’t want.
U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams said Randy Constant orchestrated a massive fraud that did “extreme and incalculable damage” to consumers and shook public confidence in the nation’s organic food industry.
Judge Williams said that, between 2010 and 2017, consumers nationwide were fooled into paying extra to buy products ranging from eggs to steak that they believed were better for the environment and their own health. Instead, they unwittingly purchased food that relied on farming practices, including the use of chemical pesticides to grow crops, that they opposed.
“Thousands upon thousands of consumers paid for products they did not get and paid for products they did not want,” Judge Williams said. “This has caused incalculable damage to the confidence the American public has in organic products.”
Judge Williams said the scam harmed other organic farmers who were playing by the rules but could not compete with the low prices offered by Constant’s Iowabased grain brokerage, and middlemen who unknowingly purchased and marketed tainted organic grain.
Fallout from protest
Acaptain at a Rhode Island detention facility resigned after witnesses said he drove a truck toward a line of protesters who were demanding the center cease its cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
While Capt. Thomas Wood worth has resigned, The Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility said in a incident“remains underactive investigation by the Rhode Island State Police andunder internal investigation” by the detention center.
The incident Wednesday night was captured on video. Five demonstrators were hospitalized, according to the group that organized the protest, Never Again Action, which describes itself as a collection of Jewish people and their allies protesting ICE and the government’s treatment of migrants.
“Given what happened on Wednesday, he should have been fired on the spot and faced criminal charges ,” said Matthew Action. “But the result is the same, he’ s no longer working therea nd that’s progress.”