CT Seeks Millions In Penalties, Restitution In Stone Academy Lawsuit: Tong

HARTFORD, CT — Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced Thursday that the state is seeking millions of dollars in penalties and restitution for students in the wake of Stone Academy’s abrupt closure earlier this year.

Tong filed a lawsuit against Stone Academy, Paier College of Art, and their owner Joseph Bierbaum, over accusations of numerous violations of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act following the abrupt closure of the for-profit nursing school.

Tong is simultaneously asking the court to attach multiple millions of dollars of Stone’s and Bierbaum’s assets during the pendency of the litigation, including Bierbaum’s Rocky Hill mansion, according to a news release.

Tong said the move would “prevent the defendants from offloading or shifting resources to evade accountability.”

“Stone Academy promised hands-on training from industry leaders, and an education that would position students to become Licensed Practical Nurses in less than two years,” Tong said in a statement. “These were lies. This is textbook consumer deception—our evidence is unassailable, and we will get justice for Stone’s students. While students suffered from plummeting exam pass rates, disappearing clinical opportunities, and a dearth of qualified faculty, Stone’s owners got rich. As Stone’s nursing program collapsed, Bierbaum took tuition money and spent it to promote his other business—Paier College of Art. Stone’s so-called ‘dedicated’ staff were also running Paier and in one instance Bierbaum’s own home improvement contracting business.

“This was not a victimless scam. Stone students took on thousands of dollars in debt and spent hundreds of hours away from their families and jobs to becomes nurses and improve their lives. Our state desperately needs these trained nurses. Stone’s day of reckoning is here—we’re demanding millions of dollars in penalties and restitution for students. We’re asking the court to appoint a receiver for Stone and to attach Bierbaum’s assets, including his Rocky Hill mansion, to ensure that Stone’s victims get every ounce of justice possible.”

Tong first launched the investigation on February 23, sending a civil investigative demand to Stone Academy after the nursing school abruptly closed its doors, leaving students’ education plans in limbo.

Stone’s response to the state investigation has been “plagued with calculated maneuvers to withhold damaging texts and emails and aggressive public relations campaigns designed to obfuscate and mislead the public, its own students, state officials and lawmakers,” the news release states. “Evidence compiled through numerous depositions, interviews and review of thousands of documents is irrefutable. Stone, its owner Joseph Bierbaum, and Paier College of Art, also owned by Bierbaum, engaged in unfair conduct and willfully deceived its students in clear violation of Connecticut law.”

Perry Rowthorn, attorney for Stone Academy, issued the following statement (via WFSB 3) on Thursday afternoon:

It is sadly not surprising that the State’s efforts are devoted to preparing a baseless lawsuit, instead of helping the many vulnerable students harmed by the Office of Higher Education (OHE) forcing the precipitous closure of Stone Academy.

It is undisputed that Stone sought to wind down in an orderly manner, proposing multiple teach out plans to avoid any disruption to its student body, but OHE ordered the closure to occur within two weeks without any teach plan in place. Remarkably, fully five months after Stone’s closure, OHE has still not organized a teach out and continues to hold students’ educations hostage while it conducts an illegal audit aimed at disenfranchising students of their lawfully earned credits. The agencies actually responsible for regulating Stone – OHE and the Department of Public Health (DPH) – have never substantiated the phantom regulatory violations alleged in the Attorney General’s lawsuit. Those agencies have completely bungled their regulatory responsibilities, approving programs and practices at issue in the lawsuit, misreading regulations and repeatedly in the last months altering their positions on applicable regulatory requirements.

To date, Stone’s efforts have been focused on helping students, but this lawsuit will require Stone to aggressively seek to hold OHE’s leadership and other state officials accountable for their severe mismanagement of this matter and the harm they continue to inflict on hundreds of students and graduates.

We will respond in more detail in court at the appropriate time.

Read the full complaint here.