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FastTrain II Corp Owner Alejandro Amor Ordered to Pay $22M
Alejandro Amor, former owner and president of FastTrain II Corp d/b/a FastTrain College, has been ordered to pay $22 million in damages and civil penalties for his role in defrauding the U.S. government of millions of dollars in federal student aid funds.
U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke entered a final judgment in favor of the United States on February 15, awarding damages in excess of $12 million and imposing over $10 million in civil penalties against Amor and his company.
According to the court documents, Amor and his company knowingly submitted falsified documents to obtain federal student aid funds in connection with ineligible students. The scheme involved submitting fake high school diploma and GED information to receive improper federal Title IV funds through various student aid programs.
At its peak, FastTrain operated seven campuses in Florida, including in Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Duval counties. The company’s admissions employees allegedly instructed and counseled ineligible prospective students to lie on their federal student aid applications.
‘The student victims in this case were especially vulnerable,’ Judge Cooke wrote in her ruling. ‘They were young people who, for whatever reasons, had not graduated high school. Realizing there are few jobs one can obtain without a high-school diploma or equivalent degree, they turned to FastTrain, hoping to learn marketable skills to improve their chances of making a decent living.’
‘FastTrain aggressively recruited these students, and then used fraud to make the Government think they were eligible for federal aid and loans,’ the judge continued. ‘FastTrain bilked the Government out of millions of dollars, most of which ended up in Amor’s pockets. As for the student victims, many now carry debt that will be enormously difficult to pay off with what they can earn working the low-level jobs for which they are qualified.’
‘Alejandro Amor and his co-conspirators preyed on vulnerable men and women who sought educational assistance to improve their quality of life,’ said U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer. ‘As a result, Fast Train defrauded the students out of a legitimate education and the U.S. government out of federal funds that were intended to help those in need of support.’
Key Facts
- State: Florida
- Category: White Collar Crime|Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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