Judge sends grandma, two others to prison for running ‘diploma mill’

As a group of weeping supporters bid her farewell, a 72-year-old grandmother was escorted out of a Fort Lauderdale federal courtroom to prison on Tuesday after a judge sentenced Gail Russ to more than six years for running a “diploma mill” out of a defunct nursing school that sold thousands of fake degrees for millions of dollars.

Russ, 72, the former registrar at the Palm Beach School of Nursing, was convicted of conspiracy along with a dozen wire fraud charges at trial in December, when jurors found that she carried out the dirty work of the school’s owner by selling 3,383 bogus diplomas for $10,000 to $20,000 each.

“Ms. Russ was the spigot,” federal prosecutor Christopher Clark told U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, describing the estimated $65 million racket during the sentencing hearings for Russ and two other convicted co-defendants. “Without Ms. Russ, none of the diplomas would have been issued.”

But Singhal, who described Russ as a “mule” who handles all of the administration at the storefront nursing school, gave the elderly Coconut Creek woman a bit of a break.

He opted to sentence her to 6½ years rather than as much as double that punishment under federal sentencing guidelines after the defendant, her lawyers, a niece and the pastor of her church asked for leniency.

“Ten years is a life sentence for Ms. Russ,” said one of her attorneys, Samantha Vacciana, who asked the judge to give her probation.

“She is irreplaceable,” said her niece, Korinthia Miller, a lawyer. “She’s needed in our community and our family.”

“She has been a faithful member of our church,” said Billy Gowdy, pastor of Cathedral Church of God in Deerfield Beach.

“I’m just asking for the mercy of the court,” Russ told the judge. “My health is declining. … I understand what is taking place. [But] if I can be granted probation, I will not break it.”

Clark, the prosecutor, who has won convictions of about 25 defendants swept up in the South Florida nursing school scandal, reminded the judge of Russ’ wrongdoing. “This is a court of law, not a temple or a church,” he said.

In addition to Russ, the judge sentenced Cassandre Jean, 38, a student recruiter from New York, to three years in prison, and Vilaire Duroseau, 58, a student recruiter from New Jersey, to two years and nine months. At trial in December, the jury found Jean, who owned homes in Wellington, Florida, and Long Island, New York, guilty of conspiracy and four wire fraud counts, and Duroseau guilty of conspiracy and three wire fraud counts.

Jean, despite a tearful bid to surrender in June after her daughter finishes first grade, was ordered to go prison immediately. Duroseau, a father of six, was ordered to surrender to prison authorities on Friday in Newark, N.J.

At trial, prosecutors Clark and Jon Juenger said thousands of students paid an average of $15,000 each for bogus academic credentials from the Palm Beach School of Nursing — after Florida regulators had shut it down in 2018 — so they could sit for LPN and RN licensing exams in New York and gain employment in the health care field without proper training.

The three sentenced on Tuesday were the remaining defendants of 14 originally charged in January of last year; 11 pleaded guilty and cooperated with authorities, including several who testified at trial. All were targets of a massive federal crackdown on a nursing school diploma mill that authorities say was centered in South Florida and extended to the northeast and Texas.

Attorneys for the three defendants argued at trial that they did legitimate work and looked out for the interests of students. The defense tried to raise doubts about the charges by focusing on the government’s star witness: the former owner of Palm Beach School of Nursing, Johanah Napoleon. She had hired Russ as a permanent employee and collaborated with Jean and Duroseau as associates through 2021.

Before trial, Napoleon pleaded guilty to a wire fraud conspiracy, was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison and paid about $3.5 million in financial penalties to the U.S. government.

One of Russ’ attorneys, Grey Tesh, described Russ as a hard-working, salaried employee who was wellliked by her colleagues at Palm Beach School of Nursing and took her orders from Napoleon. He said that Napoleon was “perhaps the most culpable defendant,” yet she was held accountable by prosecutors for far less in financial losses incurred by the school’s students.

“In the words of [comedian] Chris Rock, that ain’t right,” Tesh said.

Jean’s defense attorneys, Todd Malone and Rod

Vereen, also asked the judge for leniency, arguing there were no financial victims of the nursing school diploma scheme and that their client was a registered nurse who referred students from New York to the Palm Beach school.

“The health care providers lost nothing,” Malone said.

But Clark, the prosecutor, pointed out that Jean bought two homes worth more than $1 million and $2 million, respectively, in Wellington and Long Island with her ill-gotten proceeds from the diploma mill.

“She was close to Ms. Napoleon and saw how she made a boatload of money with very little work,” Clark said. “This was a crime of greed and opportunity.”

Attorney Martin Beguiristain, who represented Duroseau, a New Jersey educator who once ran a nursing school that went bankrupt, tried to drum up sympathy for his client.

“He’s not sitting in a $2.1 million mansion,” Beguiristain said, asking the judge for probation. “In fact, he’s upside down financially.”

At the beginning of last year, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami rattled the health care industry and the Haitian American community when they unveiled a batch of criminal cases charging about 25 defendants who had ownership interests in or worked as employees and recruiters for Palm Beach School of Nursing — as well as other for-profit schools, including Sacred Heart International Institute and Siena College of Health in Broward County. Almost all of those defendants have pleaded guilty.

The network of nursing school operators illegally charged each student for bogus degrees and transcripts without requiring proper training, according to federal authorities and court records. In doing so, the scofflaw schools provided a shortcut for students to avoid taking a one-year LPN or two-year RN 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, prosecutors 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, U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe said at a news conference. Other students were recruited from out of state to participate in the fraudulent nursing programs.