A Baton Rouge man used pretend highschool diplomas and transcripts, impersonators and even inmates in an elaborate two-year scheme to counterpoint himself by defrauding the federal pupil mortgage system of $1.4 million.
A 2020 federal grand jury indictment accused Elliott Sterling of submitting bogus paperwork to enroll people at Baton Rouge Group School by misrepresenting tutorial data, earnings and the variety of dependents on mortgage functions.
Prosecutor Rene Salomon instructed a federal district court docket jury Wednesday that Sterling — whom he described as a “fraudster” — pretended to be a university pupil 180 occasions and falsified tutorial {qualifications} for 168 college students.
Some 150 college students listed their mom’s maiden identify of “Sterling” as the reply to a safety query on federal pupil mortgage functions, the prosecutor famous. Sterling additionally purchased 42 bogus highschool transcripts for $5,000, he mentioned.
That jury swiftly and unanimously convicted Sterling on all 15 counts he confronted.
The panel additionally ordered the forfeiture of greater than $422,000 in fraud proceeds that the FBI seized from Sterling within the type of a $130,000 cashier’s verify and $292,000-plus from credit score union accounts in his identify.
An FBI agent testified Wednesday that the remainder of the cash Sterling fraudulently obtained from the U.S. Division of Training and the Small Enterprise Administration between September 2017 and November 2019 is gone.
Salomon instructed the jury that Sterling “blew” $253,000 at casinos throughout the nation.
U.S. District Decide Brian Jackson ordered a presentence investigation and scheduled Sterling’s sentencing for July 7. He stays free.
Sterling, who doesn’t have a legislation diploma however represented himself in the course of the trial, loudly insisted throughout his closing argument to the jury Wednesday that “you aren’t taking a look at a felony.” He mentioned his enterprise, Sterling Academic Consulting, “was by no means to counterpoint myself.”
However Salomon and fellow prosecutor Elizabeth White argued that is exactly what Sterling did, with the previous saying he did so by “mendacity, dishonest and stealing.”
When requested for documentation by BRCC, Sterling assisted the scholars with offering false data, his indictment alleged. Sterling would sometimes current himself as a pupil or pay others to impersonate college students at BRCC, prosecutors mentioned.
Sterling additionally hid his position because the preparer of the coed mortgage functions, Salomon mentioned.
Salomon argued that Sterling “hijacked the method” and “exploited every one” of his shoppers.
Among the monetary assist — hundreds of {dollars} — was within the names of two inmates, the prosecutor mentioned.
“Who’s on the telephone speaking to these inmates? This man!” he mentioned, pointing at Sterling.
Salomon mentioned Sterling stored 66% of the cash he obtained for college students.
“The center of the case is Sterling’s greed,” he mentioned.
Sterling, who proclaimed his innocence and mentioned he did not “hustle” his shoppers however was being punished for “earning money,” instructed the jury that “immediately is the day I really consider justice shall be served.”
It took the panel simply over an hour to search out him responsible on the 15 counts of wire fraud, monetary assist fraud and cash laundering.
“The defendant was not serving to folks, he was serving to himself,” White instructed the jury within the authorities’s rebuttal closing argument. “The defendant exploited the scholars; he used them. He selected those that he may exploit.”
Prosecutors mentioned Sterling would give the scholars a few of the cash he obtained for them however did not inform them it needed to be repaid.
“Who’s caught with the invoice?” Salomon requested the jury. ‘The scholars that he manipulated, together with the taxpayers.”