Tag: fraud

  • Corruption, Fraud and Scandal at Los Angeles Community College District, Part 2 (LACCD Whistleblower)

    Corruption, Fraud and Scandal at Los Angeles Community College District, Part 2 (LACCD Whistleblower)

    [Editor’s note: The first installment of Corruption, Fraud and Scandal at Los Angeles Community College District is here.]

    “HR has been weaponized against our faculty for speaking out and complaining about
    discrimination.” This was a public comment made by Los Angeles Community College District
    Academic Senate President Angela Echeverri at the March 2025 Meeting of the LACCD Board
    of Trustees.

    Echeverri’s remarks were not isolated either and were echoed by Deborah Harrington (California
    Community Colleges’ Success Network Executive Director), “Our HR leadership is not living up
    to the standards that we deserve. Our members remain quite frustrated.” More reporting can be
    read in Pierce College student newspaper ‘The RoundUp’ and LACCD Youtube Live-Streamed
    meetings.

    These accusations come three years after longtime administrator Annie G. Reed (Annie Goldman
    Reed) left her position as Omsbudsman/Associate Dean of Students at Los Angeles Valley
    College was promoted to Interim Dean of Employee and Labor Relations collecting an annual
    salary of $284,935.00 in pay and benefits in 2022 according to Transparent California last year of
    reporting.

    A survey of public records including news articles, lawsuits, accreditation complaints, and emails
    to show that Annie G. Reed has a long history of this sort of behavior across multiple LACCD
    campuses – going back to the 2000s. 

    In an October 27, 2010 article ‘Grade Grievances Give Students Voice’ by Lucas Thompson in
    ‘The Los Angeles Valley Star’ Annie G. Reed is quoted as cautioning students against using their
    rights to challenge unfair grades stating, “It’s worthwhile if a student really thinks they have the
    proof to forward with the process . . . It’s their right to, [but] we don’t encourage frivolous
    [cases], because that’s a waste of college resources.” 

    The article further quoted disgraced ex-College President Sue Carleo who left the institution in
    2013, with the College finances in the red and on Warning Status with the Accreditation
    Commission of Junior and Community Colleges. Carleo warned that students should simply
    view mis-grading as “Human Error.” (https://archive.org/details/cavgchm_002210/mode/2up?
    q=Annie+Reed+LAVC)

    When the ACJCC placed Los Angeles Valley College on Accreditation Warning it cited multiple
    standards violations and specifically;

    College Recommendation 5:

    To fully meet the Standards, the college should ensure that records of complaints are
    routinely maintained as required by the Policy on Student and Public Complaints Against
    Institutions
    (Standards II.B.2, II.B.2.c, II.B.3.a, II.B.4)

    This came after Annie G. Reed failed to have student records or complaints available for
    inspection to the visiting Accreditation Team.

     Three years later Reed was again in hot water when a student filed an Accreditation Complaint in
    June 2016, specifically documenting multiple faculty members in the Los Angeles Valley
    College Media Arts Department engaging in fraud and deceptive practices – supported by sixty
    pages of documentation.

    The complaint further stated that Reed refused to facilitate student complaints as was her role
    and threatened action for ‘disrupting the peace of the campus’ by making complaints. This was
    followed by a second accreditation complaint by another student regarding the same issues and a
    student Facebook Group discussing issues.

    Reed’s response was to suspend the first student running a smear campaign that he was potential
    active shooter citing the complaints he brought, suspend a thirty-year old single mother in the
    Facebook Group for Academic dishonesty after she forgot to have a college transcript from when
    she was eighteen-years old sent to LAVC, and then threatened the second student who brought an
    Accreditation Complaint for vandalizing school property.

    [Below: Text exchange between LACCD students alleging that administrator Annie Reed created a smear campaign against them.]

    Student 1 was suspended for a year (though not expelled by the Board of Trustees after
    investigation) a semester short of graduating. Student 1 would have earned six associate degrees
    and eight occupational certificates. Student 2, was ordered to pay a substantial amount of
    financial aid back to the college as “restitution.” Several months later, she was subjected to a
    reversal of hours by LAVC Grant Director Dan Watanabe in the Media Arts Department, for a
    campus job she worked and ordered to pay back several thousand dollars. Student 3 ended up
    going to Los Angeles City College to take final classes needed to graduate and was nearly
    refused graduation by Department Chair Eric Swelstad.

    These actions also happened right before and after LAVC Media Arts Faculty Eric Swelstad,
    Chad Sustin, Adrian Castillo, Dan Watanabe, and LAVC President Erika Endrijonas lobbied the
    LACCD Board of Trustees to approve construction of a new Media Arts Building that was later
    reported by The Los Angeles Times to be a massive racketeering scheme – Aug 4, 2022, Teresa
    Watanabe, ‘Corruption and fraud beset long-delayed L.A. Valley college theater project, lawsuit
    alleges.’ (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-04/corruption-alleged-in-long
    delayed-la-valley-college-theater-project) 

    These actions mirrored the treatment of a student who sued LAVC’s Media Arts Department in
    2009, alleging the same type of fraud and misconduct by nearly all the same Department Faculty.

    Enrique Caraveo vs Los Angeles Valley College, Eric Swelstad, Joseph D’Accurso, Arantxia
    Rodriguez, Dennis J. Reed among others. Filing Date: 05/18/2009 (https://unicourt.com/case/ca
    la2-enrique-caraveo-vs-los-angeles-valley-college-et-al-621337)

    In that case, Caraveo stated:

    46. When plaintiff complained about the above referenced matters, Swelstad and other Valley
    College officials retaliated against plaintiff by refusing to grant him a Certificate and creating a
    hostile learning environment for him in class.

    47. On or around June 2007 plaintiff satisfied the requirements to get a Cinema Arts Production
    Certificate (“Certificate”) at Valley College.

    54. On or about October 2008, Swelstad denied plaintiff the certificate via a letter even though
    plaintiff has fulfilled the requirements to get the Certificate.

    55. On or about October 13, 2008, plaintiff notified Delahoussaye and Reed that plaintiff had
    fulfilled all requirements for the Certificate and that they should take care of the matter as soon
    as possible. On or about October 13, 2008, Yasmin Delahoussaye and Dennis Reed denied
    request.”

    Dennis Reed, was at the time the Dean over the Media Arts Department and the husband of
    Annie G. Reed. Dennis Reed was later profiled in LAist Magazine on April 27, 2016 article ‘Jerk
    Driver Who Ran Cyclists Off Glendale Road Charged With Assault, Lying To Police’ (https://
    laist.com/news/justice-delivered-almost)

     More to the point – Dennis Reed also oversaw a grant program at Los Angeles Valley College
    Media Arts Department known as IDEAS – Institute for Developing Entertainment Arts and
    Studies at LAVC. The Grant was run by Dan Watanabe. (https://archive.org/details/
    cavgchm_002241/mode/2up?q=Annie+Reed+LAVC)

     Watanabe was also named in the Accreditation Complaint for Wage Theft, Improper use of funds
    and fraud in the successor grant ICT Doing What Matters, due to the college receiving Grant
    Money but immediately eliminating the curriculum the grant application said they would provide
    and like Caraveo’s complaint not providing in class training or labs. The complaints to
    Accreditation and the LACCD Personnel Commission by students also questioned the legitimacy
    of a number of professional experts, including Robert Reber – who was listed as both a ‘student
    worker’ and ‘professional expert’ in 2008. Student 1 further provided evidence to both that Dan
    Watanabe had asked him to falsify his resume claiming fictitious jobs and cited an employee in
    the LAVC Payroll office as being behind it (that employee immediately denied it and Student 1
    refused).

    Dennis Reed had also spent years lobbying for the approval of the VACC building –
    unsuccessfully.

    In short, Annie G. Reed’s retaliation and cover-up in 2016, may have been to help realize her
    husband’s failed building project as well as preemptively shutdown any investigations or audits
    that might trigger further scrutiny regarding how the IDEAS Grant was administered under his
    time as area Dean.

    Reed’s behavior of covering up abusive behavior towards members of the LACCD Community
    was also not limited to retaliation against students.

    In 2017, then LACCD Board President Andra Hoffman accused former Board President Scott
    Svonkin of abusive behavior and demanded sanctions. According to an article in the Los Angeles
    Daily News, ‘LA Community College board postpones sanction hearing vote against former
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    president’ August 28, 2017, Annie G. Reed again inserted herself into the matter to cover-up for
    Svonkin.

    “The allegations do not strike me as related to governing and seem best suited for mediation,”
    said Annie Reed, a district employee for 22 years and a representative of Teamsters Local 911. “I
    don’t ever recall a time, or a place, where he has treated his colleagues poorly.”

    Others disagreed, including two former women board members who did not speak at the
    downtown meeting.

    They said Hoffman’s critics — who they said weren’t present during the abuse — had a tendency
    to blame the victim, while ignoring Svonkin’s allegedly brusque treatment of employees.”
    (https://www.dailynews.com/2017/07/13/la-community-college-board-postpones-sanction
    hearing-vote-against-former-president/)

    Her behavior is further documented in a series of lawsuits against the LACCD District. 

    Filed October 03, 2024 Dr. Christiana Baskaran (Plaintiff), Linda Silva; Dr. Ruth Dela Cruz,
    Dr. Adriana Portugal, vs LACCD (including defendant Annie Reed). (https://trellis.law/doc/
    219882998/complaint-filed-by-dr-christiana-baskaran-plaintiff-linda-silva-plaintiff-dr-ruth-dela
    cruz-plaintiff-et-al-as-to-los-angeles-community-college-district-defendant-board-trustees-los
    angeles-community-college-district-defendant-los-angeles-c)

    “[other defendants] Annie Reed to discriminate against female faculty and staff, refused to
    investigate immediately or to take preventative action. Then Defendants and EMPLOYER
    DEFENDANTS retaliated against PLAINTIFFS and others to try and prevent them from
    complaining to authorities. When PLAINTIFFS opposed these illegal practices, they continued
    to retaliate against them.”

    24. As set forth herein, ALL Defendants were officers, agents. Defendants and directly or
    indirectly used or attempt to use their official authority or influence for the purpose of
    intimidating, threatening, coercing, commanding, or attempting to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or
    command PLAINTIFF and others for the purpose of interfering with the right of that person to
    disclose to an official agent matters within the scope of this article. EMPLOYER
    DEFENDANTS aided and abetted MARY GALLAGHER, ARMANDO RIVERA-FIGUEROA,
    ANN HAMILTON, JAMES LANCASTER, JOCELYN SIMPSON, JIM LANCASTER, ANNIE
    REED and Victoria Friedman District Complaince Officer, Genie-Sarceda-Magruder Interim
    Director Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Rick Von Kolen to violate this statute.

    28. . . .Dr Hamilton admitted to other illegal activity such as planting drugs on employees to
    destroy their reputation and get them fired. Dr Silva filed a grievance against Dean Hamilton to
    try and get her to stop the illegal activity, the union did nothing. 

    32. Ms. Silva complained to Human Resources filed a title IX complaint, made a report to the
    police and was retaliated against.

    Filed October 19, 2023 Sara Adams, An Individual VS California Institute of Technology,
    California Corporation. (https://trellis.law/case/23stcv25556/sara-adams-an-individual-vs
    california-institute-technology-california-corporation)

    “21. On April 7, 2023, Mr. Wu continued to report the pay disparity to Annie Reed, Upon
    information and belief, Annie Reed is Caltech’s Employee and Organizational Development
    Consultant (Human Resources Department). 

    22. Annie Reed spoke about the report of pay disparity to Ofelia Velazquez-Perez, Caltech’s
    Senior Director, Total Rewards and Director of Employee and Organizational Development
    (Employee Relations).”

    Filed March 08, 2021, Mitra Hoshiar, an individual, Plaintiff, v. Los Angeles Community
    College District, (https://trellis.law/case/21stcv08950/mitra-hoshiar-vs-los-angeles-community
    college-district-an-unknown-entity)

    “28. On December 3, 2015, PLAINTIFF then filed a discrimination complaint against Sheri
    Berger (“Berger”), VP of Academic Affairs, and Fernando Oleas (“Oleas”), Pierce Union
    President. During PLAINTIFF meeting with Dean Barbara Anderson (“Anderson”) at
    Anderson’s office on June 10, 2015, Berger and Oleas stopped by and started making remarks of
    PLAINTIFF’s accent for reading the graduates’ names on the ceremony with a non-American
    accent.

    29. Thereafter, On December 11, 2015, in meeting with Dean Annie Reed in conjunction with the
    non-collegiality investigation Walsh, Union Grievance Rep and Oleas stopped by at
    PLAINTIFF’s office in order to prevent PLAINTIFF from Union Representation. They made
    PLAINTIFF to Barbara Anderson, whom was PLANTIFF’s chosen union rep and request for
    Anderson to not join the meeting because Walsh and Oleas had to choose who could be the union
    representation in the meeting.

    30. Based on what had transpired on December 11, 2015, on December 14, 2015, Plaintiff filed a
    Whistleblower/Retaliation Complaint at the District’s Complaint at the District’s Compliance
    Office against Walsh, Oleas, and McKeever (department and union delegate), and other members
    of her department. No action was taken by the Compliance Office.

    Annie G. Reed’s, current interim Dean of Labor and Employee Relations, has been involved in
    covering up wrongdoing in the Los Angeles Community College District for decades. Her targets
    have involved employees, students, faculty, and even a trustee. And so far has never been held
    accountable.

    Multiple stories were published on newswire IndyBay, the news outlet branch of the San
    Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center between 2023 and 2024. They were then
    scrubbed (along with other stories) over the weekend of May 18, 2025.

    Recently, newly appointed Chancellor, Dr. Alberto J. Roman has been alerted to Ms. Reed’s
    disturbing history – it remains to be seen whether he will take corrective action, or continue to
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    keep around the same problematic individuals that resulted in his predecessor’s resignation after
    a vote of no-confidence by the LACCD Academic Senate.

    (To be continued…) 

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  • Corruption, Fraud and Scandal at Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD Whistleblower)

    Corruption, Fraud and Scandal at Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD Whistleblower)

    During the weekend of May 16-19, 2025, the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center – IndyBay which operates as open platform news source against injustice, scrubbed two years of news articles ranging from May 2023 – May 2025.

    The focus of these articles was corruption, fraud and scandal in the Los Angeles Community College District, primarily at Los Angeles Valley College’s Media Arts Department.

    A few of these articles summarized.

    Erika Endrijonas faces new questions in LACCD fraud | May 2, 2023 |

    Pasadena City College President-Superintendent Erika Endrijonas being fired from the institution and trying to get a job at Santa Barbara City College, Mt. SAC, and Los Angeles City College. Endrijonas had been subjected to a vote of no confidence by the Pasadena Academic Senate, Pasadena Full-Time Faculty Union, protests by Part-Time Faculty, and finally the vote to reduce her contract by the newly elected board of trustees.

    The article dived into Endrijonas’s tenure at her previous institution – Los Angeles Valley College. Endrijonas was announced in her new role at PCC in December 2018, the same week that a jury in Van Nuys awarded a former LAVC employee $2.9 million jury award for illegal retaliation and abuse. A few months earlier, the Los Angeles Times published a major story about the Valley Academic and Cultural Center – a project meant to be Endrijonas’s crowning achievement – being an alleged massive racketeering scheme.

    Further it documented the Media Arts Department the VACC would house had a lengthy history of lawsuits and accreditation complaints against the faculty for not providing the education and training advertised – negating the need for the new building. The building’s approval vote happened in August 2016, the lawsuit happened in 2009, and the Accreditation Complaints happened in June 2016.

    Dozen LAVC Cinema Students Narratives challenge Erika Endrijonas’s LACCD Success Story | May 5, 2023 |

    This article covered a release of an email thread from a dozen students in 2016 that was ultimately sent to the Accreditation Commission for Junior and Community Colleges in 2016, substantiating that there was widespread fraud in the department. Classes were not scheduled by Department Chair Eric Swelstad, training was not provided, labs were not held, etc . . .

    Van Nuys/Los Angeles College Screenwriting Professor Faked Writer’s Guild Membership | May 17, 2023 |

    Revealed that LAVC Media Arts Department Chair Eric Swelstad faked his membership in the Writer’s Guild of America – West, and then used it in multiple professional bios.

    Los Angeles Valley College perpetuated wage theft against students on Julie Su’s watch | May 19, 2023 |

    Documented how Grant Director Dan Watanabe engaged in wage theft against students for two years from 2013 – 2016.

    Two Los Angeles Film Professors Bilked Taxpayers Over $3.5 Million Dollars | May 21, 2023 |

    Described how LAVC Media Arts Department Founder Joseph Dacursso’s retirement first as Department Chair, then as a full-time faculty in 2012, left Department Chair Eric Swelstad and Arantxa Rodriguez to engage in petty infighting and squabbling that spilled over into scheduling decisions. In short, two faculty members collected six-figure-salaries while putting students in the middle of department in-fighting.

    LAVC Omsbudsman Stalked Whistleblowers | August 8, 2023 |

    Described how LAVC’s Dean of Students, Annie G. Reed (Goldman) retaliated and stalked students that went to Accreditation, going as far as running a smear campaign that one of them was a potential school shooter. Worse, she began stalking him after he left school – including on social media.

    [Image: Annie G. Reed Goldman, Dean of Labor and HR at LACCD]

    Further articles questioned where Academic Degrees were given out to students who had not completed Academic classes and criteria, the role of Jo Ann Rivas turned YouTube Personality ‘AuditLA’ who was on the Los Angeles Valley College Citizen’s Building Oversight Committee, whether a number of students with falsified resumes received payments from a Grant as ‘Professional Experts’ etc . . .

    The scrubbing of these articles coincided with the formal appointment of Alberto J. Roman as the new Chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, following the retirement of disgraced administrator Francisco Rodriguez.

    It also came with the publication of two final articles. One about Annie G. Reed’s being named as a Defendant in a lawsuit by former faculty at Los Angeles City College, who came to her about an administrator engaging in illegal behavior – including planting drugs on employees to get them fired.

    The second article, probed Los Angeles Valley College Department Chair, Eric Swelstad’s professional bio again and provided evidence that he repeatedly lied and engaged in deceptive advertising and practices for two decades. It provided students who held loans with information about student borrower defenses.

    The censorship also came months after Jo Ann Rivas aka AuditLA, herself probed by the articles, launched a barrage of attacks for about a week in January about a former student who had grievance’s against the school. Rivas had previously engaged in a similar barrage in July 2020.

    This was not the first time that an attempt was made to censor this news stream.

    In 2020, an attempt was made to hack the community news feed account on Twitter/X.com @LACCDW. Then a week before the LACCD Board of Trustees election in November 2020, Twitter suspended the community newsfeed altogether. It was only restored two years later after Twitter’s sale and the re-evaluation of previous suspended accounts.

    In a final update – The Valley Academic and Cultural Center, despite having a 2018 completion date, remains unfinished. According to minutes of the LAVC Work Environment Committee Minutes from 2025-05-08;

    “The Valley Academic and Cultural Center (VACC) is as of Friday, May 8th, about 80% complete. They are still patching the roof. There are still some critical items like stage protection net.”

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  • What will happen when a university fails to prevent fraud?

    What will happen when a university fails to prevent fraud?

    The first day of September 2025 sees an important chunk of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act come into force.

    And if you are involved in academic partnerships or the use of agents, you might want to pay heed.

    Receiving Royal Assent in 2023, the Act was initially promoted as tidying up some of the very curious practices around submitting information to Companies House.

    Measures are very much focused on understanding and regulating who gets to become a company director, and ensuring the way a company is run is transparent and properly documented. If you are a fan of the Office for Students new condition of registration E7 you may find some of the new requirements there hauntingly familiar.

    The Act also introduces a range of new offences that can lead to fines, disqualification, and even imprisonment – and higher education providers are among those carefully considering the September start date for offence of “failure to prevent fraud”. And, almost inevitably – the issue comes down to franchising and academic partnership.

    Quick definitions

    Simply put, fraud is the act of gaining a dishonest advantage over another person. In most cases this is a financial advantage.

    To give some sector focused examples – we’ve recently seen cases where student maintenance loans and student fee loans have been paid out to students who have no intention of actually studying. We’ve seen evidence that some providers (and some higher education agents) may have been knowingly registering students for financial rather than educational benefit, and that franchise and partnership agreements – where incentives may be set around income maximisation rather than educational benefit – might have played a role in some of these instances.

    Fraud, obviously, is a criminal offence. Those who commit fraud face consequences, but before the Act it has been harder to ensure that the companies involved do.

    The “failure to prevent fraud” offence, in the words of the government’s guidance, means that:

    an organisation may be criminally liable where an employee, agent, subsidiary, or other “associated person”, commits a fraud intending to benefit the organisation and the organisation did not have reasonable fraud prevention procedures in place. In certain circumstances, the offence will also apply where the fraud offence is committed with the intention of benefitting a client of the organisation. It does not need to be demonstrated that directors or senior managers ordered or knew about the fraud.

    This applies specifically to “large incorporated organisations” (one of: more than 250 employees, more than £36m turnover, more than £18m in total assets). This can apply to an entire organisation, or “a subsidiary or franchise” of an organisation.

    Behind the sofa

    It’s not difficult to imagine that a cash-strapped provider of higher education may not always be motivated to check up on the activities carried out in its name by agents and partners. When dubious recruitment practices are revealed in the press, the usual response by “lead providers” is alarm followed by a decision to withdraw from the partnership. Neither the OfS, Department for Education, or Student Loans Company really has the regulatory tools to deal with stuff on anything other than a whack-a-mole basis – and every time the music stops it turns out nobody realised how bad things really are. Withdraw, regroup – and very often enter into a similar partnership with another organisation.

    The new “failure to prevent fraud” offence means that the onus will be on universities and other providers to prove that they had “reasonable prevention procedures” – and whether they did is a matter for the courts rather than a checklist.

    Things in scope include the public law offence of cheating the public revenue alongside expected parts of the Fraud Act and Theft Act in England and Wales. The law is slightly different in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

    As well as the person who committed the “base fraud” facing consequences, this new rule means that if they are a “person associated” with a relevant body – and are acting in the capacity of that body or providing services on behalf of that body as they commit the fraud – the body itself (the lead partner in our example) will also be on the hook. It is worth remembering that a small organisation can be an “associated person” for these purposes, and although there may be a formal contractual relationship there doesn’t need to be a contract in place.

    Higher education, specifically

    If you scroll through the guidance, you might start breathing normally when you spot that there is an exemption for some “franchisees” – these are seen as connected to the main company by contract only, rather than undertaking business for the parent company. If you think about models of franchising in other sectors, this makes sense – a franchisee basically pays for the rights to use a name and a set of products.

    However, this is not the meaning of the word “franchising” in higher education – and there are specifics in the guidance dealing with the sector.

    Academic franchises may be associated persons for the purposes of the offence depending on the details of the contract. Universities or other degree awarding bodies should take legal advice.

    There’s a line drawn between “validation” franchises (university accredits awards) and “delivery” franchises (university subcontracts delivery of a programme), but there’s no easy line to draw as to whether either is an “associated person” or not. It all comes down to the nature of the individual relationship and what is in the contact or agreement.

    Doing time

    If you are involved in academic partnerships, relationships with agents, or anything similar it feels very much like now should be the moment to get on top of what is in each agreement and what “reasonable preventative measures” might be. How are you monitoring what people are doing on your behalf? How much control do you genuinely have?

    In the main, franchising is done well by higher education institutions. But if corners are being cut, or inconvenient questions not being asked, for the less rigorous few the stakes just got even higher.

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