U of Northern Washington Litigation Update

On April 9, 2001 the First Circuit Court of the State of Hawaii entered a Stipulated Permanent Injunction and Final Judgment against Defendant University of Northern Washington, Inc. (a Hawaii corporation).

The judgment required the university to comply with various Hawaii laws relating to its operations and barred the university from making any representations to the effect that it is registered by, incorporated in or affiliated with the State of Hawaii. The judgment also barred the university from representing that it was accredited and require the university to affirmatively disclose its unaccredited status in its promotional materials. The judgment also barred a variety of other conduct by the university.

The judgment also required the university to pay restitution to one consumer and civil penalties of $30,000 (with an additional $10,000 if payment was not timely made).

UNW failed to abide by the terms of the judgment, making no payments and failing to immediately alter its promotional materials to comply. Eventually it terminated its mail-forwarding arrangements with the Honolulu company whose address it was utilizing. This summer the judgment was registered as a foreign judgment in Whatcom County, Washington where UNW maintains its bank accounts. This month UNW finally altered its website to remove all references to the state of Hawaii. The principal behind UNW appears to be Mazhar Ali Kahn aka Michael Kahn. Mr. Kahn is a resident of either the State of Washington or Vancouver, British Columbia.

Anyone wishing to see an unfiled electronic version of the stipulated judgment may email requests to [email protected]

Jeffrey E. Brunton
Staff Attorney
Office of Consumer Protection
State of Hawaii

 

Props to you sir.

Hawaii has came so far so fast.

Tony

 

It's great to see the great state of Hawaii taking concrete steps against degree mill operators. Good work!

Darren.

 

Mr. Brunton:

Has any money been collected so far from UNW as a result of the judgement being registered in WA state?

Also, does Hawaii ever pursue criminal charges against the defendent(s) for breach of a court order in circumstances such as this?

I applaud your efforts - keep up the good work.

 

Jeffrey Brunton: At dog'll hunt! Go git im. Congratulations again.

 

Another one down!

These frauds are running out of places to hide! They will soon all be herded into Wyoming and St. Kitts thereby hopefully reaching critical fraud mass and then implode. (Perhaps that is explode? I'll have to check my physics notes.)

 

First (and foremost) UNW is and always has been a Vancouver, Canada operation. The actual people (or person) who run this operation reside in Vancover and are apparently Canadian citizens. These people merely establish a shell corporation in Hawaii (with a mail-forwarding adress right back to Vancouver). The webhoster for UNW's website is a Canadian company.

Second, we have been informed that although all victim's monies appear to be directed into a bank account in Blaine, Washington, the State of Washington doesn't believe it has jurisdiction.

Third, there never has been anything of substance in Hawaii--no office, no bank accounts, no employees, no assets-- so there isn't much more we can do than terminate their corporate existence, shut down--or alter the website and terminate mail-forwarding services.

Fourth, our office has no jurisdiction to bring criminal complaints and we doubt our courts would do anything about criminal contempt for failure to comply with the terms of the judgment.

UNW, Pickering International, Manhattan, Newton, Barrington (and formerly Stanton) and possibly others are and were being run completely from Vancouver.