U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION MEMORANDUM TO: Distribution 6 MAY 1981 Ronald D. Lipton Chief, Participation Control Branch Ronald J. Fiston Termination of the following schools from all Title IV, This is to inform you that the subject schools have been terminated The effect of the terminations is stated in 45 CFR 168.80. It ends the schools' eligibility to participate in the Title IV programs, prohibits the schools or the Department of Education from making or increasing financial aid awards, prohibits the schools from making any other new obligations against funds for the Title IV programs, and prohibits further commitments of Federal insurance by the Department of Education under the Guaranteed Student Loan Program for loans to students to attend the schools. This has been provided to you for your information so that you may take any steps necessary to carry out the termination, including applicable closed school procedures. Please notify anyone not on the distribution -2 list that you feel should be notified. If you have any questions or need additional information, please call me or Howard Fenton at (202) 245-9880. Distribution Edward Melady, Acting Assistant Secretary for James Moore, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Richard A. Hastings, Acting Director, DCPR William Hassler, Chief, ARB, DCPR Jeff Raffensperger, Chief, ILCB, DCPR Arthur Sinai, Acting Assistant Inspector General for Investigations Harold Wienberg, Director, DPO Maurice Tansey, Acting Deputy Director, DPO Gray Crayton, Chief, Basic Grants Branch, DPO Robert Coates, Chief, Campus Based Branch, DPO David Kerr, Director, DSDD Pat Hopson, Director, DTD Stephen Kraut, OGC Richard Sonnergren, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher and Continuing Education Richard Rowe, Director, DEAE William Ward, Director, Division of Financial Management William Ward, Director, Division of Financial Management Josue Diaz, Regional Administrator, Region II Thomas Zaccone, Assisant Regional Administrator, Region II Attached are computer reports dated 8/14/84 which reveal the results of our Our initial results show that Pell (BEOG) Grants were made through 59 in the amount of $2,647,007, to the 633 "students" whose births cannot verified. There are two reports for the verified SSN's and two for the non-verified SSN's. Formats of these reports are similar to other reports which have been provided: Listing of current SSN, award year, school number sequence Listing of matched SSN records (by vendor) Please call me if you have any questions about these reports. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Alan Klienburd Trial Atorney Commercial Litigation Branch Civil Division Department of Justice P.O. Box 261 Ben Franklin Station Washington, D.C. 20044 Dear Mr. Klienburd: The birth verification project conducted by Department of Education staff revealed that the births of 148 out of 156 U.T.A. BEOG recipients which we checked could not be verified. As the result of a previous investigation the Department of Education had in its possession a limited number of social security number applications (SSS) for BEOC recipients. Only the BEOG recipients showing New York City as their birth place (SSS) were checked. The New York City birth records for the year of birth shown (SSS) were reviewed. We attempted to further verify the results of the birth verification project by employing standard skiptracing procedures. Initially we attempted to skiptrace 15 of the non-verified U.T.A. BEOG recipients (with 4 years of BEOC) We were not successful in locating 13 of these individuals. We did get two phone listings which we have not been able to verify. We could not obtain credit reports on any of the 15. we attempted to obtain information from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles; to date, we have six negative responses and are awaiting responses on the other nine. We called directory assistance for telephone listings in Brooklyn for all 148 non-verified recipients. We were able to obtain 40 listings. We attempted to contact the people with listings on August 24 and 27. We spoke to 4 people who were students at U.T.A. One person had been a teacher at U... and one woman who said her husband attended U.T.A. we spoke to eight people who said they did not attend U.T.A. and four people who would only identify themselves but would not answer any questions. None of the birthdates of the people who attended U.T.A. matched the BEOG birthdate on record. The people we talked to said they were older or sounded much older than the BEOG recipient would be. Attached are copies of our notes of each telephone conversation. In most cases we did not have a chance to ask all of the questions listed. The people we spoke to appeared to be somewhat defensive and we were reluctant to probe toc dceply out of concern for causing unnecessary alarm. Generally, if we have a pote disproved reinfore Mall NICE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION I the question we asked the question. This process has not of the birth verification project. In fact, it has Aflnary conclusions. We can continue with this process if you feel we met more data. The process has been time consuming (i.e. expensive) and somewhat disconcerting to the people we have contacted. would like you to consider the information available at this point and let me know if you feel we have prima-facie evidence to file suit. As you know a lawsuit will alleviate some of our statute of limitations problems and hopefully will put the burden of proof on U.T.A. to explain the large number of discrepencies found to date. |