rhodes scholar and former oxford student goes to jail for fraud
Anchorage, Alaska – United States Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced today, September 13, 2010, that Rachel Denkler Yould, aka Rachel Eyre Hall, a resident of Anchorage, Alaska, was sentenced in federal court in Anchorage on Friday, September 10, 2010, to 57 months on charges of defrauding the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education and the Sallie Mae Corporation by obtaining student loans to which she was not entitled, and, in a separate case, for providing false documents to USAA Federal Savings Bank in San Antonio, Texas, when she applied for a mortgage to purchase an Anchorage condominium.
United States District Judge John W. Sedwick imposed the sentence on Yould, age 38.
According to information presented to the court by Assistant United States Attorney Retta Randall, Yould, in 2003, obtained a new social security number under a special regulation of the Social Security Administration for victims of domestic violence and harassment. Yould used the names of Rachel Yould and the newly assigned social security number to obtain student loans from the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, and Stafford loans and private loans from Sallie Mae Corporation which exceeded the lifetime maximum limit previously reached under the name of Rachel Hall. Contrary to the regulatory purpose of the SSA program, she used the Hall name to cosign for student loans in the Yould name and applied for student loans using social security numbers for both names without notifying the lenders that the names belonged to the same person. She also provided false statements of income to lenders and misrepresented to Oxford University the types of loans it was certifying. She used the student loan funds for non-educational purposes, which included investing in a Smith Barney Investment Account and investing in a for-profit business known as Oxford International Review Management Services.
Yould was also sentenced for having influenced USAA Federal’s approval of a loan to her for the purchase of a condominium located on 3rd Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska, by providing USAA Federal with false information in support of a Uniform Residential Loan Application. She also submitted false statements of income including a falsified Internal Revenue Service Form W-2, and false statements of residency to USAA Federal in order to obtain the mortgage.
Prior to imposing sentence, Judge Sedwick stated that he did not credit Yould’s extravagant theory that the Social Security Administration through the actions of nameless bureaucrats solely influenced “the behavior of this Rhodes Scholar” when she applied for student loans using false information and the second social security number.
Ms. Loeffler commended the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Inspector General, for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Yould.
