The federal government says a company that tutored struggling New York City students was caught cheating as it tried to score tens of millions of dollars in federal funding.
Federal prosecutors and the U.S. Department of Education’s office of inspector general filed a civil fraud lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan against the Princeton Review Inc., based in Framingham, Mass., and one of its former employees.
“The Princeton Review and its employees were supposed to tutor needy students, not cheat a federal program,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a release.
It alleges that the company’s employees regularly submitted false claims for payment when it tutored students at underperforming city schools from 2002 to 2010. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for tens of millions of dollars it alleges the company received from 2006 to 2010. Princeton Review stopped the tutoring program in 2010.
Princeton Review said in a statement that none of the employees or executives involved in the program remain with the company.
