Jardon Laforcarde, 28, of Phoenix, was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in a federal student aid fraud ring that included three others. Laforcarde pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to defraud the U. S. Department of Education of $369,589 in student aid funds.
The three other participants pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy and were also recently sentenced: Ramon Meneses, 25, of Phoenix, received 54 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release; his wife, Bobbie Robertson-Meneses, 31, of Phoenix, received five years of probation with 12 months of home incarceration; and Dorothy Taylor, 50, of Phoenix, received 24 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.
Laforcarde, Meneses, Robertson-Meneses, and Taylor all conspired to enroll fictitious students in online college courses and submit fraudulent online applications for federal student aid in the names of those fictitious students. Laforcarde and Meneses, who were serving sentences in state prison at the time, obtained the personal identifying information of other prison inmates whose identities could then be used as the fictitious students. Robertson-Meneses and Taylor, who both have prior convictions but were not in prison at the time, used that information to complete the on-line enrollment forms. The fictitious students were awarded $369,589 in federal loan funds and Pell grants, and $254,891 was disbursed before the fraud was detected and stopped. The funds went to Robertson-Meneses and Taylor, who shared them with Laforcarde and Meneses. All four were ordered to pay restitution to the U.S. Department of Education.