Police seizure of records challenged

The targets of a diploma mill investigation reported a $200,000 theft of business records to police in 2005, two months after the 11 boxes of documents were seized in a Post Falls office building by a federal task force dubbed “Operation Gold Seal.”

Bryan Tafoya, a Spokane police detective assigned to the task force, joined Post Falls police Detective Dave Beck to investigate the reported theft on May 31, 2005, U.S. District Court Judge Lonnie Suko was told Wednesday.

Under questioning by a defense attorney at an evidence suppression hearing, the Spokane police detective conceded his primary reason for going to the Post Falls Professional Building on Seltice Way and interviewing Steve and Dixie Randock and their employee Roberta Markishtum was to gather information for the federal diploma mill investigation.

Tafoya testified the task force was interested in learning if the Randocks were attempting to file a fraudulent insurance claim by reporting to police that the boxes of records were worth $200,000, but investigators also wanted to know more about their ties to the diploma mill operation.

The investigation, begun in January 2005, centered on the Internet sale of bogus high school and college degrees worldwide, using as many as 125 Web sites for nonexistent online universities – mostly operated out of Spokane – that gave credit for life’s experiences.

Defense attorneys are attempting to have evidence found in the boxes suppressed or the charges against the Randocks, Markishtum and Heidi Lorham dismissed because of what the defense contends is “outrageous police conduct.”

The hearing is expected to continue today, before a postponement until mid-November when testimony from a final witness will be heard. The defense attorneys argued that the Spokane police detective, while really a member of the federal task force, used a ruse to trick the Randocks into believing he was a Post Falls police officer investigating their theft report, five months before they were indicted.

James Tilley, an investigator with the U.S. attorney’s office, later testified that the boxes, containing 20,000 pages of documents, were reported stolen to the Post Falls police by Markishtum, two months after they were taken from a hallway storage area with a task force search warrant. The defense argued that it was “police misconduct” when the task force left a copy of a search warrant with the building owner and not with the Randocks and their employees, who leased an office adjoining the hallway where the boxes of documents were stacked.

Assistant U.S. Attorney George Jacobs argued that leaving that search warrant with the building owner was legal because investigators serving the warrant weren’t immediately certain who owned the boxes.

Under questioning by defense attorney Peter Schweda, Tafoya testified that the boxes contained credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and other personal data from people who made online purchases of college degrees from various Internet schools operated by the Randocks.

Tafoya testified that the Randocks were extremely vague and evasive when he asked them about the nature of the businesses they operated out of the Post Falls office building.

He also testified he was federally deputized in September 2005 when his continued work with the task force required him to accompany Secret Service agents out of town.

The Randocks, Markishtum and Lorham were indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud in October 2005. The Randocks also face charges of conspiracy to launder more than $1 million they collected from selling bogus high school and college degrees, using the office in Post Falls and others in Hillyard and Mead.

Four other defendants have pleaded guilty and agreed to testify as prosecution witnesses at the trial, now scheduled for June.