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Hispanic University of Utah was founded as a place to help Spanish-speaking immigrants earn a degree, but over a decade, it devolved into a diploma mill targeting foreign nationals with false claims that it had the stamp of approval from Utah's government.

Amid serious regulatory problems, this unaccredited school gave up its registration in 2012. But it didn't cease operations.

The Utah Division of Consumer Protection, which oversees unaccredited colleges, eventually found hundreds of violations and originally levied a mammoth $3 million fine against the school and six administrators in mid-2013. The legal wrangling lasted all the way until last month, and the state has yet to collect a penny. Regulators have found it hard to ensure the people behind Hispanic U. don't open a similar faux university with something as simple as a Facebook page and inaccurate claims.

"There is not a lot we can do," said Daniel O'Bannon, the division's director, describing cases such as this one in which some of the people involved live outside of the country. "It is terribly frustrating for us."

Violations and fines • Hispanic U., with its $3 million fine, was the clear outlier in a Salt Lake Tribune review of the division's 2014 filings. A company that sent deceptive mailers designed to look like bills received the next highest initial fine — $120,000, with the state accepting $12,000 in final settlement.

In all, O'Bannon's team filed documents on 124 cases last year. The biggest portion involved contractors who didn't complete a job or didn't provide a necessary refund, or aggressive telemarketers who didn't have a license or who failed to tell customers that they could reconsider within three days.

These smaller cases came with fines of $2,500 to $5,000 per violation, and, if the violators agreed to settle, they usually saw those amounts reduced significantly, with some paying just $1 for every $10 owed.

The rest of the fine would be suspended for a year and used as leverage for the company or contractor to play by the rules.

In 2014, the division settled 62 percent of cases, while 30 percent of the time the companies ignored the filings. These "default orders" eventually were sent to collections. The remaining cases were either dismissed or were still in progress.

The division doesn't track collections on its default orders. O'Bannon said at that stage the division believes it has finished its work.

A separate state office or a team at the attorney general's office tries to collect the cash. Any money that does come in goes into an education fund, which the division uses to train its employees and to pay for a public-education campaign in the form of billboards or TV ads. The division received nearly $196,000 in total fines for 2014, while the two previous years saw collections well-above $300,000 annually.

Those amounts show just how large, and unusual, the Hispanic U. case was for Consumer Protection, which strives to settle cases through negotiation rather than rigid enforcement.

The credentials • Arturo De Hoyos created Universidad Hispana, which had its first graduating class in 2003. The former Brigham Young University sociology professor saw a need to help immigrants from Latin America gain an education or finish a degree they started in their home countries.

He offered Spanish-language classes at night and on the weekend. Graduates, using English-language textbooks, could get a GED and, eventually, an associate degree in business.

"They have the qualifications. They have the credentials. They have the desire," De Hoyos said at a BYU forum in 2004. "Except they don't have the language."

The school obtained a state registration and eventually offered degrees in marketing and computer science as well as English as a second language.

In April 2012, the division began investigating the unaccredited school over allegations that Universidad Hispana misused private-sector grants and gave diplomas to people who never attended a course. De Hoyos decided to cease operations rather than fight the accusations, although he said he planned to continue running similar schools in foreign nations such as Bolivia, Peru, El Salvador and Mexico.

About a year later, Ernesto Montanares, who was De Hoyos' personal assistant, tried to revive the school, a shift the division marks by using the English version of the name, Hispanic U.

Montanares wanted to offer similar programs geared toward foreign nationals from the same location De Hoyos was using, a nondescript, beige brick office building with no sign at 441 E. 3900 South.

Division investigators looked into Montanares and Hispanic U., finding that it was offering online classes and recruiting students through multiple websites and a Facebook page, even though it wasn't registered.

On those sites, the university claimed it was "certified by the office of the Governor of the State of Utah," the degree would be "valuable" to students who wanted to live in the United States and that it offered "proof that Latinos can also study in the USA without leaving our own countries."

A number of posts were made after the university supposedly closed.

Deals and denials • Hispanic U. offered academic credit for life experience, which in some limited circumstances is allowed, but is often a sign of a diploma mill. One Facebook post said a person with three years of job experience would need only a three-month course to get a bachelor's degree.

Investigators posed as prospective students and received emails saying that it would cost just $2,100 and take 18 months to get a degree.

The investigators say notary records show Montanares signed 437 degrees between April 2012 and June 2013, each one a violation and earning a separate fine.

The division levied additional penalties for misusing the title "university" and having a name that may give consumers the false idea the school was associated with the state's flagship University of Utah.

In all, that original complaint filed in July 2013 called for a maximum fine of $3,010,500 to be paid by the school, De Hoyos, Montanares and four others, including two people living in Honduras and one man living in Mexico. Besides De Hoyos and Montanares, the others were largely involved in the marketing and financial aspects of the company.

Initially, Montanares, an immigrant from Chile, persuaded the state to believe he wasn't in control of the websites, received none of the money and was willing to drop his registration attempt. The division agreed to suspend any fine as long as he provided information.

At the same time, Montanares and De Hoyos asked for an administrative review of the civil charges, which resulted in some reductions in the number of counts and their associated fines.

The biggest shift was that Angela Hendricks, who presided over the review, decided the notary records were not enough to prove Hispanic U. had issued degrees inappropriately. That dropped the total penalty down to $685,000.

De Hoyos remains on the hook for $318,500, either personally or through the university.

The rest was levied against the three people living elsewhere, and O'Bannon, the division chief, knew that the likelihood of collecting that money was nil.

Investigator Liz Blaylock attempted to reach those respondents and has never received a response. One person, determined to have no control of the university or its operations, was dismissed from the case.

De Hoyos has so far ignored the division's filings, and in just the past few months, his case has been sent to collections at the Utah Attorney General's Office. A spokeswoman with that office says staffers are reviewing the case.

The division has not sought criminal charges against anyone involved.

Tribune attempts to reach De Hoyos and Montaneres were unsuccessful.

Montanares never lived up to his end of the settlement.

He offered the division no information about who else may be involved, and, on top of that, investigators found Montanares was involved in "NATO Indian University" — another unregistered school — offering the same deal as Hispanic U. from the same South Salt Lake location.

In June 2014, when the division threatened to stick him with the original $3 million fine after more than a year of negotiation, Montanares entered into a new settlement agreement. That deal, signed Oct. 2, allows him to avoid any financial penalty as long as he agrees not to own, operate or consult with a privately owned school.