Attorney General William Tong said Thursday that he is suing Stone Academy, Paier College of Art and their owner, Joseph Bierbaum.
In February, Stone Academy announced that it was closing all three campuses across the state after more than 150 years of operation. Stone Academy offered programs in East Hartford, Waterbury and West Haven.
Tong is alleging violations of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act after the closure of the for-profit nursing school.
Tong said he is also asking the court to attach multiple millions of dollars of Stone’s and Bierbaum’s assets, including Bierbaum’s Rocky Hill mansion.
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“Stone Academy promised hands-on training from industry leaders, and an education that would position students to become Licensed Practical Nurses in less than two years. These were lies. This is textbook consumer deception—our evidence is unassailable, and we will get justice for Stone’s students,” Tong said in a statement. “While students suffered from plummeting exam pass rates, disappearing clinical opportunities, and a dearth of qualified faculty, Stone’s owners got rich. As Stone’s nursing program collapsed, Bierbaum took tuition money and spent it to promote his other business—Paier College of Art. Stone’s so-called ‘dedicated’ staff were also running Paier and in one instance Bierbaum’s own home improvement contracting business. This was not a victimless scam. Stone students took on thousands of dollars in debt and spent hundreds of hours away from their families and jobs to (become) nurses and improve their lives. Our state desperately needs these trained nurses. Stone’s day of reckoning is here —we’re demanding millions of dollars in penalties and restitution for students. We’re asking the court to appoint a receiver for Stone and to attach Bierbaum’s assets, including his Rocky Hill mansion, to ensure that Stone’s victims get every ounce of justice possible.”
“It is sadly not surprising that the State’s efforts are devoted to preparing a baseless lawsuit, instead of helping the many vulnerable students harmed by the Office of Higher Education (OHE) forcing the precipitous closure of Stone Academy," Perry Rowthorn, attorney for Stone Academy, said in a statement.
Tong first launched an investigation on Feb. 23 and his office has spoken with students and former workers as well as reviewed documents.
"It is undisputed that Stone sought to wind down in an orderly manner, proposing multiple teach out plans to avoid any disruption to its student body, but OHE ordered the closure to occur within two weeks without any teach plan in place. Remarkably, fully five months after Stone’s closure, OHE has still not organized a teach out and continues to hold students’ educations hostage while it conducts an illegal audit aimed at disenfranchising students of their lawfully earned credits. The agencies actually responsible for regulating Stone – OHE and the Department of Public Health (DPH) – have never substantiated the phantom regulatory violations alleged in the Attorney General’s lawsuit. Those agencies have completely bungled their regulatory responsibilities, approving programs and practices at issue in the lawsuit, misreading regulations and repeatedly in the last months altering their positions on applicable regulatory requirements," Rowthorn said in a statement.
"To date, Stone’s efforts have been focused on helping students, but this lawsuit will require Stone to aggressively seek to hold OHE’s leadership and other state officials accountable for their severe mismanagement of this matter and the harm they continue to inflict on hundreds of students and graduates," the statement goes on to say.
The Office of the Attorney General is seeking civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation as well as restitution for Stone’s students. The complaint also requests that the court appoint a receiver for Stone Academy to marshal its assets.
Rowthorn said they will "respond in more detail in court at the appropriate time.”
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