Attorney General William Tong is expanding the state's case against Stone Academy, alleging that the owners of the former for-profit nursing school siphoned millions of dollars and left the school financially incapable of living up to its promises.
"While Stone students struggled in unheated classrooms without textbooks, experienced teachers or promised clinical experiences, Stone’s own financial records show how Stone’s owners hoarded millions of dollars for luxury cars, mansions, and their other businesses," Tong said.
In February, Stone Academy announced that it was abruptly closing all three campuses across the state after more than 150 years of operation.
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
Tong first sued Stone Academy and its owner earlier this year and called the school's actions a "textbook case of consumer deception." He is alleging violations of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
They were selling an education, for profit, and they lied to people about the education they were providing.
Attorney General William Tong
In court documents filed Monday, Tong expanded the state's case and said Stone's owners, Joseph Bierbaum and Mark Scheinberg, "earned vast sums from unfair and deceptive conduct."
Local
Tong's office found that Bierbaum bought a $1.4 million mansion in Rocky Hill in 2020. The complaint also alleges that Stone was paying upwards of $100,000 per year for three luxury vehicles.
"What do you need two Teslas and an Audi for to run a nursing school?" Tong said. "To see how they took in millions of dollars more then paid for Teslas and houses and swimming pools and tennis courts is unconscionable."
According to the amended complaint, Stone enrollment surged at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tong said that the school had never brought in more money than during that time period and, he alleges, that the owners hoarded millions of it.
"While students were not getting textbooks, they were not getting heated classrooms, they were not getting qualified faculty," Tong said. "We keep peeling the layers of the onion back and we find more and more misconduct."
Bierbaum's attorney did not provide a comment to NBC Connecticut. Attorneys for Stone Academy did not respond to our request.
There is an upcoming hearing scheduled in the state's case. Meanwhile, Stone Academy is facing a second lawsuit from a group of former students.
Bierbaum testified for the first time in that case last week.
On the stand, Bierbaum claimed the Office of Higher Education didn't provide enough insight into the alleged violations.
“The State of Connecticut did not provide us with any depth as to what actually was going to need to be fixed because there was no follow up, we didn’t have the luxury of the information that you showed earlier from Department of Public Health, and at that point, they were asking for an audit on items where they didn’t even identify the depth of what they were,” Bierbaum said.
