Wilfred Fined For Falsification of Grant, Loan Applications

BOSTON (AP) _ Wilfred American Educational Corp. and its Massachusetts subsidiary, Wilfred Academy, Inc., were fined a total $517,000 Tuesday for falsifying federal loan and grant applications.

The fines, announced at a disposition hearing in U.S. District Court, followed a five-week trial last fall at which a federal judge found that New York-based WAEC and Wilfred Academy had filed false information in completing Pell grant applications and guaranteed student loan applications mailed to the U.S. Department of Education.

During the trial, the government introduced evidence showing that Wilfred employed admissions representatives were pressured to enroll quotas of students on a monthly basis. The representatives completed applications and routinely falsified information regarding the students' residences, parents' income and assets, estimated savings and expected family contributions.

Judge Walter J. Skinner found that four school managers at Wilfred Academy's three Massachusetts outlets in Boston, Malden and Worcester were aware of the falsifications and in some cases directly encouraged the falsifications.

Skinner stayed the fines for one year to allow WAEC, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, to correct its problems and ordered the corporations to pay an additional $30,000 in interest after one year.

WAEC at one time was the largest operator of trade schools in the U.S. It operated 39 Wilfred Academies of Hair and Beauty Culture and 18 American Business Institutes in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, California and Illinois.

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