Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President

SPOKANE, Wash. — At least 135 federal employees, including a White House staff member and National Security Agency employees, bought bogus online college degrees from a diploma mill, a lawyer in the case against the mill operators said.

Some of those who paid thousands of dollars for phony diplomas include a senior State Department employee in Kuwait and a Department of Justice employee in Spokane, defense lawyer Peter S. Schweda said Wednesday.

The bogus degree purchases by the federal workers were revealed Wednesday during a U.S. District Court status conference for five defendants in the case against the mill, The Spokesman-Review reported Thursday.

None of the federal officials was identified.

"We're not going to disclose who bought these degrees until after the trial is under way," U.S. Attorney James A. McDevitt told the newspaper.

The alleged ringleaders of the bogus-diploma mill, Dixie E. and Stephen K. Randock Sr., were indicted in October 2005 on charges of conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud and laundering almost $2 million in diploma mill receipts from 2002 to 2005. Six employees also have been charged.

Material provided to the defense by the Justice Department shows at least 135 government employees bought degrees to use in seeking promotions or pay raises, Schweda said. The phony diplomas came from such places as James Monroe University and Robertstown University.