Leader of Spokane diploma mill sentenced

The leader of a diploma mill that sold more than 10,000 fake high school and college degrees around the world has been sentenced to three years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud.

Dixie Ellen Randock, 58, sold counterfeit degrees and transcripts from phony as well as legitimate universities to more than 9,600 people in 131 countries for more than $7.3 million, Assistant U.S. Attorney George J.C. Jacobs said Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

To make her operation appear legitimate, Randock funneled cash bribes to at least one Liberian Embassy worker, getting the Liberian Board of Education to accredit her universities.

Judge Lonny R. Suko sentenced her to prison, followed by three years of probation during which parole officers will monitor her computer, business and financial activity. Randock's daughter, Heidi Kae Lorhan, was sentenced to a year in prison.

The actions of Randock, a high school dropout, "put the public in significant risk of harm" by selling degrees in fields such as nursing, counseling, engineering and medicine to people who may be working in those fields around the world, Jacobs said.

Defense lawyer Phillip J. Wetzel asked that Randock be allowed to serve her sentence at home so she can care for her husband, Steven K. Randock Sr., 68, who is recovering from open-heart surgery. His sentencing was postponed until Aug. 5.

She told the court she was "sorry for everything," including using more than a half-dozen aliases to set up St. Regis University, James Monroe University and dozens of others that operated out of office buildings in Mead and nearby Post Falls, Idaho.

Randock also sold phony degrees and transcripts from legitimate universities, including the University of Tennessee, the University of Maryland, Texas A&M, George Washington University and several others.

Lorhan, 39, an eighth-grade dropout, became the "highest paid adviser" for the operation, earning as much as $120,000 a year, Jacobs told the court.

Lorhan sold bogus degrees to purchasers who responded to e-mails and Web sites that billed the universities as legitimate. Often she offered "holiday specials" and "buy one, get one free" pitches, Jacobs said.

"She was the link between the buying public and the diploma mill," he said.

The Randocks and Lorhan were indicted in October 2005 and pleaded guilty March 26, the eve of their trial, to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. In the plea agreement, the U.S. attorney's office dropped charges of money laundering, which carried longer sentences.

The Randocks also agreed to forfeit $535,000 in cash and their late-model Jaguar.

Defendants Blake Alan Carlson, Richard John Novak, Kenneth Wade Pearson and Amy Leann Hensley await sentencing after pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with authorities in exchange for lighter sentences.

One remaining defendant, Roberta Lynn Markishtum, Dixie Randock's former daughter-in-law, who worked as a printer for the diploma mill, was sentenced Wednesday to four months in prison for concealing a felony.

Markishtum provided "high quality" diplomas affixed with impressive looking seals and fictitious signatures, Jacobs said. Markishtum also answered the phone at the operation's Official Transcript Record Center, verifying the authenticity of degrees for employers.

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Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesmanreview.com