This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
An unusually large consumer-protection case against a defunct college diploma mill is heading to state court.
The Utah attorney general's office filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of the Division of Consumer Protection against Hispanic University and two administrators.
According to the division's filings, the largely online school preyed on foreign nationals with the false promise that its education was not only valuable in the United States but sanctioned by the state of Utah; it was neither.
The school's license expired in 2012, but it continued to operate.
That led to a $3 million fine, by far the largest recorded in a Salt Lake Tribune review of the division's 2014 cases.
The lawsuit attempts to collect only $578,500, targeting Hispanic University, founder Arturo De Hoyos and administrator Kemmerly Edgardo Erazo Pineda. So far, the state hasn't received any payment, and communication has ceased.
Others cited in the original complaint live overseas and are not subject to the court case.
The suit seeks to block De Hoyos and Pineda from starting another proprietary school in Utah and to collect fines of $48,000 from De Hoyos, $260,500 from Pineda and $270,000 from Hispanic University.
It also is asking for a 2.27 percent interest rate to be levied on those fines and close to $1,000 in attorneys' fees and court costs.
It is not uncommon for the attorney general's office to use the courts in an attempt to collect overdue fines.