Unfairly Targeted, Fraud Defendant Says

A Venice man indicted on charges of participating in a scheme to steal more than $1 million in federal scholarship funds said he has been unfairly targeted by federal officials because they can’t bring the real culprits to justice.

Kenneth Williams Jr. issued a formal statement proclaiming his innocence in response to an indictment by a federal grand jury on Jan. 17.

The indictment alleged that Sergio Stofenmacher, the former owner of IADE American Schools, and Williams, the trade school’s chief financial aid officer, conspired to defraud the U.S. Department of Education. The pair are charged with conspiracy, theft, money laundering and making false statements to a federal agency.

“What is really going on here,” Williams alleged, “is an attempt by the U.S. attorney’s office, after having spent two years and countless taxpayer dollars and being pressured by senior U.S. Department of Education officials, to indict someone, frankly anyone, that they can actually bring to trial.”

Stofenmacher fled to his native Argentina following a March 1995 raid by federal officials. The search came in response to complaints from students and employees of IADE.

Before declaring bankruptcy in 1995, IADE operated six schools in Southern California and one in Florida. It was the 16th-largest recipient of Pell grants--designed for needy students--in the United States, having collected $58 million in such grants starting in 1989.

Williams, 37, said he had cooperated voluntarily with a U.S. Senate committee investigating IADE and had talked to the FBI and federal prosecutors without having an attorney present.