E-Paper
Indian sentenced for loan fraud in US
Arijit Chowdhury has been sentenced to a term just a day less than one year on charges of loan fraud, writes S Rajagopalan.
It was an ingenious plan until he was found out.
Arijit Kumar Chowdhury overstayed in the US after his student visa expired, faked his identity, got into a medical school and graduated by getting over $135,000 (nearly Rs 6 million) in loans and scholarships through false declarations. And then all hell broke loose.
On Tuesday, a US District Court in Boston sentenced the 36-year-old Chowdhury, alias Steve Valdez, alias Dale Barber, to a year in jail. And, on completion of the prison sentence, he will face deportation to India, the court ruled.
Chowdhury has also been ordered to pay restitution to the educational institutions and student loan agencies from which he obtained money.
The Tufts University School of Medicine from which he passed out in May 2000 has already revoked both his degrees -- MD (doctor of medicine) and MPH (master of public health). He had received the degrees as Steve Valdez, the name under which he had registered at Tufts.
It could have been worse for Chowdhury if he had not pleaded guilty to a three-count indictment at a previous hearing last December. For, he was faced with a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine on each of the three counts to which he pleaded guilty.
Chowdhury, who has been in federal custody since last August in connection with the charges, had entered the US in the late 1980s on a student visa. After spending two years at Texas A&M University, he left college and his visa expired.
But he remained in the US, using the name Steve Valdez and a social security number taken from an individual with a similar name.
"Chowdhury falsely claimed to be a US citizen, falsely claimed to be of Hispanic background, and falsely claimed to be an orphan," the court documents said.
"Based on these false representations Chowdhury was admitted to Oberlin College and later to Tufts Medical School, financing his education with scholarships that were earmarked for students from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as students that were available only to US citizens," the documents said.
Judge Joseph L Tauro, while sentencing Chowdhury, noted: "He used up several hundred thousand dollars of financial aid that could have gone to people who belonged in this country and I view that as a serious offence."
