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Diploma buyer charged

Ex-U.S. marshal's case first prosecution of purchaser

Bill Morlin
Staff writer
January 8, 2008

A former deputy U.S. Marshal who held a supervisory post in Spokane faces a federal criminal charge for allegedly using a bogus college degree he bought on the Internet to get a $16,000-a-year job promotion.

The case against the former federal marshal is the first criminal prosecution of an estimated 6,000 customers who bought degrees from some 125 bogus online universities operated out of Spokane and Post Falls, senior Justice Department officials said Monday. Some purchasers used their bogus degrees to get jobs and others used them for promotions.

David Floyd Brodhagen, who retired from the U.S. Department of Justice Dec. 23 at age 47, was formally charged four days later with “official writings” – making and delivering as true a statement knowing it contained false statements. The federal misdemeanor carries a maximum of one year in prison, a $100,000 fine and a year of supervised release.

“Brodhagen submitted an application for advancement within the U.S. Marshal’s Service which contained a representation that he held a college degree from Saint Regis University,” a criminal complaint says.

It also alleges the deputy marshal “presented the U.S. Marshal’s Service with a transcript of courses taken and grades received from Saint Regis, which he then and there well knew was not a legitimate post-secondary institution.”

The criminal complaint against Brodhagen was filed by Carl E. Rostad, a special attorney to the U.S. attorney general, who reviewed the results of an internal investigation by the U.S. Marshal’s Service.

The case was referred by the Justice Department to Rostad, an assistant U.S. attorney in Montana, after U.S. Attorney Jim McDevitt requested that his Spokane office be removed from the investigation because of its past contact and familiarity with Brodhagen.

McDevitt declined comment on Monday other than to confirm it was the first criminal prosecution of a purchaser in the four-year diploma mill investigation.

“Getting the degree is not fraud,” Rostad said Monday when reached at his office in Great Falls. “It’s how you use it that constitutes fraud, and that’s what we’re alleging here.”

Brodhagen is expected to appear Jan. 24 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno – the same courtroom where the former deputy marshal guarded dozens of prisoners over the past two decades.

Brodhagen couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.U.S. Marshal Michael Kline, who supervised Brodhagen and was involved in his promotion after a review by headquarters, called the case “extremely unfortunate.”

Brodhagen claimed to be a “Saint Regis University graduate” when he applied to move from a GS-12 position to the supervisory post, which was rated as GS-13, Kline said.

For 2006, the Office of Personnel Management listed the maximum pay for a GS-12 employee at $80,975 and a GS-13 at $96,292.

Kline said he referred the matter to the U.S. Marshal’s Service headquarters for investigation after learning about the allegation in mid-2005, about two years after Brodhagen got the job.

Brodhagen worked as criminal supervisor, overseeing a team of seven other deputy U.S. marshals who work in the Spokane office, from early 2003 until he went on medical leave last summer. Prior to 2003, Brodhagen was the deputy U.S. marshal assigned to assist individuals in the Federal Witness Protection program.

One source who previously worked with Brodhagen and asked not to be publicly identified said there was a sense among some of his former colleagues that the Justice Department was making an example out of the ex-deputy marshal.

Another senior Justice Department official, asking not to be identified, said various federal and state agencies have been notified about employees whose names have surfaced as purchasers in the diploma mill investigation. The list includes at least 135 U.S. government employees, including one former member of the White House staff, according to court documents and proceedings.

“It’s been up to those various agencies to decide what to do,’’ the official said. “When confronted, some people have resigned, there have been terminations and suspensions.’’ Last September, the New York Fire Department fined 14 of its firefighters a combined $135,000 for using the bogus degrees for promotions.

The Justice Department doesn’t have the resources to investigate and prosecute every customer who may have fraudulently used their bogus degrees, the official said, but instead has focused on prosecuting the alleged perpetrators of the scheme.

Bill Morlin can be reached at (509) 459-5444 or e-mail: billm@spokesman.com.

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