Michael Jackson's spiritual advisor with PhD from Pacific Western U.

You've got a friend in me - It's billed as the most sensational trial since OJ Simpson's, but even if convicted of child abuse, one man will stand by Michael Jackson - Dr Firpo Carr. In LA, the Jackson family's 'spiritual advisor' explains how the star is the victim of a racist plot

 

I noticed that he apparently used the story that he got his PWU PhD from the California branch even though it was not in psychology.

 

As was, I believe, his plastic surgeon.

 

The California version of Pacific Western is only approved to offer business degrees. See (here).

From the British celebrity gossip story:

Carr's enemies focus on his doctorate, a qualification in Computing Information Systems from the Californian branch of the Pacific Western University, based in Hawaii, an on-line institution widely critiqued as a "diploma-mill".

I suppose a CIS specialization is consistent with a business doctorate.

Frankly, I don't find this degree very remarkable at all. I mean, does one really need an accredited doctorate to be somebody's "spiritual advisor"? If so, then a lot of kindly old grandmothers need exposing as frauds.

What interests me a lot more is this:

But when I called the relevant universities to check on his previous degrees (the first, also in computing, from the University of San Francisco, the second a Master's in management from the University of Redlands, California) both confirmed his CV as genuine. So did his former employers, including the LAPD. Carr currently works part-time for a satellite campus of the University of Phoenix, lecturing in Comparative Religion.

He lectures on comparative religion for the U. of Phoenix, despite having no formal academic training in that subject?