Tufts School of Medicine graduate Arijit Kumar Chowdhury, 36, pleaded guilty to federal charges of loan and scholarship fraud Monday before U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro in Boston.
Chowdhury graduated with both M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from the medical school in May 2000, according to Dickens Mathieu, the senior labor and employment counsel to the University.
Chowdhury was registered at the school under the name Steven Valdez.
The defendant pleaded guilty to a three-count indictment charging him with illegally obtaining approximately $98,965 in Stafford loans, fraudulently receiving a half-tuition scholarship from Tufts, and lying to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in order to receive a $36,666 grant directed toward disadvantaged students.
"As soon as we became aware of the fraud, we cooperated with the U.S. Attorney's Office and conducted our own review of the facts," Mathieu said. "After ascertaining that he had committed fraud on the University, the executive committee of the Board of Trustees revoked his two degrees."
Debbie Griffin, financial aid coordinator at the Medical School, said the financial aid office could not comment.
The criminal investigation is set to continue and Chowdhury has yet to be sentenced. On Monday, Tauro set the sentencing date for March 3 of next year.
A U.S. Attorney's Office press release stated that he faces a maximum five-year prison sentence followed by a three-year supervised release and a $250,000 fine for each of the three counts.
Chowdhury also faces deportation to his native India following the completion of his sentence.
Samantha Martin, spokeswoman for the Boston U.S. Attorney's Office, said the office had no further comment as the case against Chowdhury is not yet closed.
"Tufts will continue to work with the office until the case and sentencing is completed," Mathieu said.
Prosecuting Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Levenson told the court Monday that evidence proves that Chowdhury entered the United States in the 1980s on a student visa from Texas A&M University in College Town, Texas. He quit after two years at the school and his visa expired; Chowdhury nevertheless remained in the country using the name Steven Valdez.
Chowdhury claimed to be an orphaned U.S. citizen of Hispanic background and used a social security number belonging to someone with a similar name to that of his false identity.
Chowdhury was then accepted to Oberlin College in Ohio and later Tufts Medical School under this identity, financing his education at both institutions with scholarships intended for students of disadvantaged background and loans given only to American citizens.
Mathieu said he was "not aware that such fraud has ever happened [at Tufts] before."
"Obviously Tufts regrets that this happened, but I don't think that Tufts did anything wrong here or that we missed something we should've caught," Mathieu said.
Chowdhury was unavailable for comment, as he has been in federal custody since his arrest in August.
