Eight Admissions Representatives Charged with Pell Grant Fraud

Marcos Daniel Jiménez, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Lester Fernandez, Special Agent in Charge, United States Department of Education, Office of Inspector General, announced today the unsealing of three multi-count criminal Indictments charging eight former admissions representatives at local vocational schools with Pell Grant fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy to commit the same. The defendants charged in the respective Indictments are Teresa Leon, Irma Warren, Jaime Baudelino Hurtado, Maria Esther Mena, Henry Robert Jean Leger, Andrea Cainzos Garrote, Maria Ofelia Garcia, and Andrea del Carmen Mongalo.

The Indictments allege that the eight defendants, while acting as admissions representatives at the Hialeah Technical Center, Miami Technical Institute and the Miami Institute of Technology, procured students to falsify financial information to qualify the students for Pell Grant funds that were paid to the schools by the United States Department of Education from 1994 through 2000.

Mr. Jiménez commended the investigative efforts of the United States Department of Education, Office of Inspector General. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Christopher J. Clark.