Student loan fraud scheme nets Jersey woman 5 years

A South Jersey woman was sentenced to more than five years in prison after she submitted 90 student loan applications seeking more than $1.7 million.

La'Vada Cruse, 25, of Browns Mills, was successful in garnering 17 of those loans and collected more than $192,000, prosecutor's said.

In federal court in Camden, Cruse admitted that she applied for more than 90 loans in her own name and the names of her family whose names and social security numbers she used without their permission.

On the applications, submitted between 2003 and 2007, she said she was a full-time student at regional colleges and included fake enrollment letters and bios, phony employment letters and financial information.

When the student loan applications were approved, banks cut her checks for as much as $22,000.

Cruse pleaded guilty today to to an information charging her with one count of mail fraud, two counts of tax evasion, another of aggravated identity theft.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle sentenced Cruse to five years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $136,403.