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List of animals with fraudulent diplomas
Colby Nolan is a housecat who was awarded an MBA in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, a Dallas-based diploma mill, sparking a fraud lawsuit by the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.[1]
Colby Nolan lives with a deputy attorney general. In looking to expose Trinity Southern University for fraud, some undercover agents had the then six-year-old Colby Nolan obtain a bachelor's degree in business administration for $299. On the cat's application, the agents claimed that the cat had previously taken courses at a community college, worked at a fast-food restaurant, babysat, and maintained a newspaper route. Then the school informed Colby that, due to the job experience listed on his application, he was eligible for an executive MBA for $100 more. The agents then sent for Colby's transcript, which claimed that he had a GPA of 3.5.
Jerry Pappert, Pennsylvania's attorney general, filed a lawsuit against Trinity Southern University upon learning that the cat had received the degree.[2] In the lawsuit, Pappert also told the diploma mill, which had used email spam to sell degrees, to provide restitution to anyone who had ordered a degree from them.
In December 2004, the Texas attorney general obtained a temporary restraining order under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act against Trinity Southern and its owners, Craig B. and Alton S. Poe. The court also ordered the school's assets frozen.[3] In March 2005, the Poes were assessed penalties of over $100,000 by the court and were ordered not to market or promote fraudulent, substandard degree programs or to represent their university as being accredited or affiliated with legitimate universities.[4][5] It was reported that the Poes were also associated with Wesleyan International University and Prixo Southern University.[5] Trinity Southern University's website has been offline since 2005.[6]
In 2009, George, a cat owned by Chris Jackson (presenter of the BBC show Inside Out North East & Cumbria), was registered with three professional organizations: the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming, the United Fellowship of Hypnotherapists, and the Professional Hypnotherapy Practitioner Association, securing George's accreditation as a hypnotherapist.
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