Tougher fake-degree penalties sought

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Annoyed at the prospect of people paying for effortless diplomas – like those advertised at two now-defunct diploma mill Web sites – state lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives want to toughen the criminal laws against “false or misleading degrees.”

“It’s a matter of academic and professional integrity,” said Sen. Mark Schoesler, prime sponsor of Senate Bill 6487. It’s unfair, he said, for people working nights or weekends, trying to balance education with family, to have to compete with people who bought a meaningless degree from an Internet Web site. A hearing on his bill is scheduled today in Olympia.

“We want to be assured that when we see a degree listed on a resume that it’s really a bona fide degree,” Rep. Jan Shabro, R-Bonney Lake, one of the sponsors of a similar House version, HB 2507, told a House hearing recently. “I think it’s essential that this happens, so we can make sure that when we hire, promote or elect someone to office, that those people have truly made the investment and paid the price for a truly legitimate college degree.”

In October, federal investigators in Spokane filed indictments against eight people accused of running Internet-based “diploma mills” and earning millions of dollars by selling bogus college degrees. They were accused of conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud in the six-year sale of thousands of degrees from schools like Saint Regis University, Robertstown University and James Monroe University.

“The diploma mill case, just in Spokane, all by itself justifies what we’re trying to do,” said Schoesler.

Just this week, one of the eight – webmaster Kenneth Wade Pearson – was indicted on federal charges of possession and receipt of child pornography. A federal prosecutor said that investigators found more than 10,000 images of child porn on four computers used as part of the alleged diploma mill operation.

Under state law, it is already a gross misdemeanor to grant degrees without approval from the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Under Schoesler’s bill, use or offering of a “false academic credential” would constitute criminal fraud – a Class C felony.

Under the House bill, authored by Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney, D-Seattle, anyone claiming a degree from an institution not authorized by the HEC Board could be fined up to $1,000, unless the person spells out, in writing, that the institution isn’t approved by the state.

Last year, state lawmakers passed a law prohibiting school teachers from using credits from diploma mills to claim higher pay. Anyone who does faces the prospect of a $300 fine and having to pay back the extra cash.

“This is just tightening it up,” said Kenney.

Schoesler said lawmakers are also worried about the prospect of fake degrees being used by foreigners to get work or study visas in the United States.

“Those that would use phony credentials to get into this country, I don’t think we want,” he said.