School Settles Suit Over Fake Diplomas

Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer announced a $500,000 settlement Friday of a civil suit against a Huntington Park-based adult school accused of giving immigrants bogus high school diplomas after a 10-week course that cost hundreds of dollars.

The suit, filed in August, alleged that California Alternative High School had preyed on immigrants’ aspirations with false claims that the program was recognized by state and federal authorities, would qualify graduates for college and would help them win higher-paying jobs. In fact, the school’s diplomas were worthless, the complaint said.

Investigators found that unqualified instructors were teaching immigrants that there were 53 states in the union, four branches of government and two houses of Congress, one for Republicans and one for Democrats. The school claimed to have graduated thousands from its 26 California locations and sites in at least four other states.

“Hundreds went to get an education and only got a lesson in greed,” Lockyer said, calling the school a “very serious ring of immigrant fraud.”

The settlement, which still requires a judge’s approval, would permanently prohibit the defendants -- school founder Daniel Gossai and his wife Janet -- from claiming to operate a high school, offering high school diplomas or claiming their program is recognized by any government agency.

If approved, it will conclude a two-year investigation into the school by the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs, the attorney general’s office and local law enforcement. Attorneys general in Nebraska, Iowa, Arizona and Nevada have also filed suits against Gossai and the school.

In an interview, Gossai said he settled the case because he had run out of money for his defense. He maintained he has done nothing wrong, and said his school gave impoverished immigrants education and hope.

“This is a miscarriage of justice,” he said. The attorney general is “preventing the disadvantaged from improving their lives.”

Gossai added that he knew of dozens of other schools in California offering similar diploma programs that had not been prosecuted, including some founded by former California Alternative High School teachers. “Four of them separated from me and started schools based on my model,” Gossai said. “I’m distressed that we’re applying the laws unequally.”

Lockyer said $400,000 of the settlement will go to victims; the rest is penalties and reimbursement to investigating agencies. About 600 graduates have already filed complaints with the Department of Consumer Affairs, and officials encouraged others to come forward.

Juana Yepez and her husband, Jose, saved for months to afford the $600 each for the course that promised them a high school diploma and a chance to get ahead in life. Some days there wasn’t enough milk for the baby, Yepez said, so Jose took a second job cleaning city parks to make ends meet.

The sacrifice was worth it when Yepez -- wearing a cap and gown she was required to rent -- was handed the diploma by Gossai last year. The unemployed mother of three, who said she worked 14 years in a factory until the fumes made her sick, would now be able to apply for her dream job: a custodian cleaning classrooms at city schools.

“The diploma represented everything,” Yepez, a naturalized citizen, said in Spanish. “It meant going to work in a school, and perhaps getting an easier job after that.”

But when she submitted the diploma with her application, she said, “they handed it back and said it wasn’t worth anything.... I felt defrauded and humiliated.”

Dozens of Los Angeles churches helped recruit students for the school’s classes and received a percentage of the proceeds, investigators found. Yepez said she was still suspicious of the church where she took the class, which demanded upfront payment in cash. Relatives of the pastor were teaching the classes, she said.

Investigators said they had no evidence to suggest the churches were involved. “We believe they were duped just as much as the students were,” said Michele Van Gelderen, the lead attorney with the attorney general’s office.

The case has exposed a loophole in state regulation of private education, officials said.

Gossai himself is quick to point out that the state has no authority to regulate private schools and accreditation is voluntary. He says he plans to reopen his program by calling the facilities alternative schools rather than alternative high schools.

“This is not going to stop me,” Gossai said. “This cannot stop God’s mission.”

A year after receiving her diploma, Yepez has found only part-time work cleaning public parks and says she still dreams of working for the school district. She is taking English classes at a local adult school that charges $1 per semester.

“Here I have to study hard and do the homework,” she said.