Ex-owner of South Florida school tied to fake nursing diploma racket will serve 21 months

The former owner of a South Florida nursing school at the center of a racket that peddled fake diplomas for millions of dollars to thousands of students was sentenced Tuesday to one year and nine months in prison.

Johanah Napoleon, 47, former president of the Palm Beach School of Nursing, was also ordered to pay about $3.5 million as part of her punishment imposed by U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith in Fort Lauderdale federal court. Napoleon, a former licensed chiropractic assistant who later became a nursing-school owner, has paid about $2.6 million of that amount so far to the federal government from the sale of three real estate properties, according to court records.

Napoleon, who was charged in two federal cases, pleaded guilty last year to a conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud along with a related count. She faced up to four years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, but her defense attorney, Joel DeFabio, argued for about half that punishment. He cited her extensive cooperation with investigators and prosecutors in nursing-school scheme that authorities say extended from South Florida to the Northeast.

“After her arrest, Ms. Napoleon quickly agreed to cooperate and accept responsibility for her conduct,” her lawyer, Joel DeFabio, wrote in a court filing, noting that his client left the healthcare profession, went to beauty school, and is now licensed as a facial and nail specialist. “Her cooperation is ongoing, and she will be testifying as a government witness in at least one pending trial.”

In May, five defendants who worked for Palm Beach School of Nursing in Lake Worth and other businesses pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit wire fraud in Fort Lauderdale federal court. They were all arrested as part of a take-down in January of 25 suspects who were swept into a major crackdown on South Florida nursing school operators that began with a tip four years ago.

Overall, they are accused of selling fabricated nursing degrees to thousands of students who then used the bogus diplomas to take licensing exams in several states, including Florida, New York, New Jersey and Texas, according to federal prosecutor Christopher Clark. The network of nursing school operators, centered in South Florida, illegally charged each student between $10,000 for a licensed practical nurse degree and $17,000 for a registered nurse diploma — without requiring proper training, according to federal authorities and court records.

The schools provided a “shortcut” for students to avoid taking a nearly two-year nursing program requiring clinical work, national exams and certification, while instructors prepared them to take the licensing exams to practice nursing in a number of states, authorities said.

An estimated 7,600 students paid a total of $114 million for phony nursing degrees from the South Florida schools and other suspect programs between 2016 and 2021, according to the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Of those, one-third, or about 2,400 students, ended up passing their licensing exams, mainly in New York, which imposes no limit on the number of times that students can take the exam. Nurses certified in New York have the ability to practice in other states, including Florida.

Many of the students who purchased degrees were from South Florida’s Haitian-American community, including some with legitimate LPN licenses who wanted to become registered nurses. Other students were recruited from out of state to participate in the fraudulent nursing programs, authorities said. They could all see their nursing licenses revoked.

The investigation, aptly dubbed Operation Nightingale, began in 2019 with a tip from Maryland that led to an FBI undercover operation that initially targeted two Fort Lauderdale business people, Geralda Adrien and Woosvelt Predestin, who both pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. They cooperated with authorities and were sentenced to more than two years and three months in prison in 2022.

Adrien owned two private education companies, Docu-Flex & More and PowerfulU Health Care Services, where Predestin was an employee. Together they schemed with Siena College of Health/Siena Education Center in Lauderhill and Palm Beach School of Nursing “to sell fraudulent diplomas and college transcripts,” according to court records.