2 Charged in Bogus Postal Training School
The district attorney’s Consumer Protection Division on Wednesday filed felony criminal charges against two Montebello businessmen who allegedly set up a bogus postal service training school in a Beverly Boulevard suite and bilked unsuspecting students out of thousands of dollars.
Ralph Kinzer Wise, 45, the owner of the Federal Training Institute, and Joseph Jody Sims, 40, the institute’s in-house counselor, were charged with making false and misleading statements, with making false, deceptive, inaccurate and misleading representations and supplying inaccurate employment information.
According to Deputy Dist. Atty. Stuart Lytton, the pair offered a postal service examination course for $1,950. Students who attended the course allegedly were told that they would automatically be hired if they scored perfectly on the exam. Lytton said that the U.S. Postal Service cannot guarantee jobs, and that it offers free courses to people who wish to take the exam.
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