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GoogleAn arrest warrant was issued today for Danielle M. Feagin, 22, of Malden, charged in Cape Girardeau County with a single count of forgery for attempting to obtain admission and merit-based scholarships worth thousands of dollars with a fake transcript from Three Rivers Community College. If convicted, Feagin faces up to seven years in prison.
According to a sworn statement filed with the complaint, a transcript was delivered on Aug. 9 to the admission's office at Southeast showing that Feagin had a perfect 4.0 grade point average and 89 credit hours to transfer to Southeast. The transcript, however, had several problems, Poplar Bluff Police Department investigator David Sutton wrote. When given to Three Rivers admissions office director Marcia Fields, she verified that it had altered numbers, no watermark, a font not used on Three Rivers transcripts, no page numbering and the wrong signature for the date it was issued, Sutton wrote.
Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said several of those problems were noticed at the Southeast admissions office.
"She was applying for thousands of dollars worth of scholarships," Swingle said. "An alert person in SEMO's admission office had seen so many transcripts she recognized the font was not right and that it had no watermark."
According to Sutton's statement, Feagin actually had accumulated 37 credit hours at Three Rivers, with a grade-point average of 2.4. When he interviewed Feagin about the transcript, she admitted that she was the one who delivered it to Southeast but claimed that the information, showing a 4.0 grade point average and 89 credit hours, was correct.
Feagin continued to insist the transcript she gave Southeast was accurate after being shown a copy of her actual transcript Sutton obtained from Three Rivers, he wrote.
The admissions office at Three Rivers also provided information showing that Feagin had never been enrolled in many of the courses listed on her transcript, Sutton wrote.
Bond for Feagin was set at $5,000 cash.
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I'm sure a 2.4 GPA was more than adequate for SEMO. But this stupid girl thought she needed a 4.0? I say fine her, but don't put her in prison. That way we won't have to waste taxpayer money on her for prison and then more for the rest of her life when she becomes a lazy career welfare recipient.
What I find odd about this story is that SEMO still accepts transcripts brought in by students. I worked at two separate community colleges down here in Abilene and both colleges stopped that practice a LONG time ago and only accept either electronic copies or hard copies mailed by the other college. Takes out the possibility of this kind of thing happening in the first place.
Second point of this is, in my opinion, that she should be prosecuted and fined, but not imprisoned, like Jim said. This fraud is typical of why there are such strict guidelines for financial aid eligibility. There are many scholarships and grants that are based on GPA as well as need, which is probably why she upped hers, and obviously if SEMO had accepted the transcript, she would have not had to pay for all those extra classes. Guess she won't have to worry about that now, as hopefully SEMO and TRCC will flag her account for any other colleges that she may apply to. This is what happens when you don't play by the rules.
I say limit her breeding rights unless she gets that 2.4 up to at least a 3.0.
If she had just used her creativity and energy to work on the courses that she actually took at TRCC, then she might have had a higher GPA than 2.4. I agree with Barbara that it is unusual that SEMO still accepts transcripts submitted in person from students--very outdated process.
AlwaysABearcat...you make another excellent point about today's society, thank you. I see it all too often where people spend more time and energy trying to get around the system. I don't know what her declared major was, but we have to worry about what kind of 'whatever' she was going to become if she had gotten away with it. Heaven forbid it be in the field of medicine...think about it. And think about how many HAVE gotten away with it!! When I was working in financial aid at the colleges here, I saw a huge amount of fraud going on (or attempted fraud at least). I was a bit hardnosed about what we called 'selecting for verification'. And I caught a lot of flack about it, too, but my job was not only to serve the students, but the tax payers as well. Needless to say, not everyone agreed with me on that.
But this kind of leads back to the issue of SEMO still accepting transcripts from the students...okay they obviously have people verifying those transcripts, but wouldn't it be much more cost-efficient to require them (transcripts) from the other school? I mean how many man-hours are being spent on verifying them that could be better used elsewhere?
A 2.4 at TRCC? NOT the brightest knife in the cookie jar.