Trial that could out feds alleged to have bogus degrees delayed

Names of 135 federal employees who allegedly bought fake diplomas from an outfit in the western United States will not be revealed for at least one year, if ever, according to a U.S attorney's office.

Last week in Spokane, Wash., during a pretrial hearing for eight people accused of selling counterfeit degrees from nonexistent universities, a defense attorney told the judge that employees from the National Security Agency and the Health and Human Services, Justice and State departments were among 6,000 people who bought the diplomas, according to the Associated Press.

The AP also reported that Peter Schweda, attorney for alleged diploma mill operator Steven Randock, said the names of 135 government employees who supposedly purchased the degrees for promotions or pay raises would be released during the course of the trial.

The trial will not start for another year, though. Judge Lonny Suko of the District Court of the Eastern District of Washington delayed it until Oct. 1, 2007, to give attorneys more time to prepare. Suko said more than 150,000 pages of e-mails, 40 CDs of documents and up to 50 witnesses will be used.

Tom Rice, a spokesman for the U.S attorney's office in Spokane, Wash., which is prosecuting the case, said Schweda's assertions that government purchasers would be revealed "were not necessarily accurate."

Rice also said he cannot confirm or deny that there is a separate Justice Department investigation into federal purchasers of the fake degrees. The case was built around a sting operation by a handful of Secret Service agents.

"It has been said that [names] may become available in that trial, but sitting here discussing it with you, I don't see how it's relevant to the Randock trial who purchased them," Rice said. "That'd be like saying everybody who used cocaine would be introduced in the trial of Manuel Noriega."

The 40-page indictment for defendants Steven Randock, Dixie Randock, Richard Novak, Blake Carlson, Amy Hensley, Heidi Lorhan, Roberta Markishtum and Kenneth Pearson accuses them of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, among other offenses. Pearson pleaded guilty last week.

The defendants allegedly set up a number of bogus universities, including "Saint Regis University," "James Monroe University" and "Trinity Christian School." They then sold diplomas and fake transcripts without requiring any coursework or testing.

One of the fake universities, "Robertstown University," used a photograph of Blenheim Castle, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and home of the Duke of Marlborough, to depict its campus on a Web site, according to the indictment.

In 2004, the Office of Personnel Management held seminars to train federal managers on spotting fake degrees. OPM and congressional overseers stepped up efforts to thwart diploma mills after Laura Callahan, a senior director in the Homeland Security Department chief information officer's office, was found to have purchased her degrees from an alleged diploma mill in Wyoming.

OPM did not respond to requests for comment on any current investigation into federal employees involved in the Randock case.