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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Grad Loan Fraudster Owes Shareholders $13.5M

MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge on Friday ordered a Harvard-trained businessman convicted of creating fictitious student loans through his company Graduate Leverage to pay shareholders roughly $13.5 million.

Daniel Thibeault, a 41-year-old from Massachusetts, formed his company Graduate Leverage while a student at Harvard Business School, where he graduated in 2004. The business was originally intended to lend to people "less susceptible to economic downturns, such as medical doctors, dentists, veterinarians, attorneys and business owners."

In 2013, Thibeault began issuing dozens of loans amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars to his personal friends or acquaintances, who did not apply for them.

Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused him, Graduate Leverage, his other businesses and Taft Financial Services of misappropriating at least $16 million.

Criminal prosecution soon followed, and Thibeault pleaded guilty early this year before being sentenced in June to nine years in prison.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken — handling a civil suit filed against the disgraced businessman by his shareholders — heaped another penalty in the form of a $13.5 million judgment against Thibeault.

As Thibeault and his businesses did not answer the shareholders' complaint, the judgment was entered by default.

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