Suffolk University employee admits stealing $47K in fake student loans

A Suffolk University employee pleaded guilty Monday to falsifying student loan paperwork to get $47,453, federal prosecutors announced.

Ashley Ciampa, 28, of Medford, admitted that while working at Suffolk, she falsified student loan paperwork to make it appear that she was a graduate student.

Ciampa, who worked at Suffolk’s Registrar’s Office since 2009, enrolled in Suffolk’s MBA program in 2013, which is free for employees of the university.

“In a first-semester business ethics class, Ciampa failed to attend class or complete the required coursework, but instead used her computer access in the Registrar’s Office to assign herself an ‘A’ for the course,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. “In subsequent semesters, she repeatedly assigned herself passing grades for classes she never attended.”

Beginning in 2014, Ciampa illegally obtained $47,453 in student loans for her fraudulent graduate student education, prosecutors said, which she spent on vacations and other personal expenses.

Ciampa will be sentenced Oct. 5. She could face up to five years in prison.