A Broward County nursing school owner was sentenced to 87 months in prison by a Fort Lauderdale federal judge on Tuesday for her role in a scheme to sell bogus diplomas and transcripts to would-be nurses who sought credentials and jobs around the United States.
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At the end of two weeks of trial in June, Carleen Noreus, 52, of Plantation, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Dressed in business attire while sitting at the defense table with her lawyer, Andrew Feldman, on Tuesday, Noreus read from a statement that was filled with sorrow and regret.
“I think about moments when I could have stopped, questioned what was happening or simply walked away,” Noreus told U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal. “I cannot change those moments now but I can fully accept responsibility for them.”
Singhal sentenced her to seven years and three months, to be followed by two years of supervised release. The government had sought a range of 188 to 235 months.
“She started out with a legitimate school … a time where Ms. Noreus wanted to properly help people,” the judge said, “and then at some point — I don’t why — at some point turned to greed over helping people.”
“Ms. Noreus, I think that you’ve done good things in your life and I don’t know why it went south for you,” the judge said.
Noreus, according to the government, is the 50th and nearly last defendant to be sentenced after a series of federal investigations into nursing school diploma fraud across the country that spanned several years.
In sentencing memorandums filed with the court, Miami defense attorney Feldman had asked the judge to sentence his client to five years.
“Carleen Noreus stands before this court ready to accept whatever punishment the court deems appropriate,” Feldman wrote in a sentencing memorandum on his client’s behalf. “Carleen has accepted responsibility and is remorseful for her actions.”
Noreus owes the government a forfeiture payment of more than $9.5 million; she is prepared to turn over $4 million, according to court filings. The final amount will be determined at a forfeiture hearing in late October.
Relatives and other supporters sent 11 letters to the court requesting leniency. Most of them, including letters from her two daughters and from her husband of 20 years, Ilfride Noreus, spoke of a woman who is devoted to her family members, including support for a disabled grandson who she helps care for multiple times a week.
But the government sought a 20-year sentence. In court filings, federal prosecutors rejected a defense argument that Noreus should receive a reduction because others snared in the government’s sweeping investigation of for-profit nursing schools received less time in prison.
“Here it is evident that Noreus’ co-conspirator and other similarly situated defendants who received less severe sentences because of their guilty pleas and cooperation are not similarly situated,” a prosecution team led by Senior Litigation Counsel Christopher J. Clark wrote in a response to the defense bid for a reduced sentence. “Because the defendant occupied a managerial role in the offense, failed to accept responsibility for her criminal conduct until after two weeks of trial, and did not provide the government substantial assistance, there is no ‘unwarranted’ disparity between defendant and her accomplices’ sentences.”
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Students warned Florida about ‘fishy’ nursing school, records show
Noreus served as president of Carleen Home Health School, Inc. in Plantation and vice president of Carleen Home Health School II, Inc. in West Palm Beach, the government said. She became a registered nurse in 2002.
Along with others, she was accused of conspiring to sell fraudulent nursing diplomas and course transcripts to people who had not completed the required coursework or clinical training to earn credentials as Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurse/Vocational Nurses (LPN/VN), or Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees.
The phony diplomas and school records “falsely represented that purchasers had successfully completed the academic and clinical requirements of the schools when, in reality, they had not,” the government said in a June 18 statement following Noreus’ guilty plea.
But the paperwork “enabled purchasers to sit for the national nursing board examinations and, after passing those examinations, obtain nursing licenses and employment in the healthcare field.”
Evidence at trial showed Noreus operated between April 17, 2018, and Oct. 8, 2025, and provided 2,956 fraudulent nursing diplomas, the government said.
Florida regulators have since terminated the schools Noreus operated, according to the government.
Of the individuals who obtained fraudulent credentials from the school, approximately 2,274 passed nursing board examinations, allowing them to obtain nursing licenses and work as nurses in Florida and across the country.
“Nursing licenses must be earned through education, training, and demonstrated competence, not purchased through fraud,” U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida said in the government’s June statement. “By selling thousands of fraudulent diplomas and transcripts, the defendant undermined the integrity of the nursing profession and our healthcare system.”
“Operation Nightingale”
The government said the case is part of a second phase of “Operation Nightingale,” a national effort targeting fraudulent nursing diploma schemes operated by for-profit nursing schools in South Florida.
Thus far, the government said, “the investigation uncovered an illegal shortcut to professional licensure and employment that resulted in fraud-related charges against 13 defendants, including Noreus, for their roles in selling fraudulent nursing diplomas and transcripts.”
In Phase I, 30 defendants were charged and convicted in 2023 through guilty pleas or jury verdicts at trials.
Clark and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon M. Juenger presented the Noreus case at trial for the government.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Grosnoff is handling the asset forfeiture portion of the case.
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