Four Ghanaian students have been detained on suspicion of falsifying high school transcripts to gain admission to a university in the United States
According to court records from Northampton County, four international students from Ghana have been apprehended in the United States on charges of allegedly falsifying high school transcripts to gain admission to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
The students—Otis Opoku, Evans Oppong, Cyrilstan Nomobon Sowah-Nai, and Henry Dabuo—are currently being held at Northampton County Jail on charges of forgery and theft of services. They were arraigned on September 9 and are awaiting preliminary hearings scheduled for September 24.
Lehigh University’s student newspaper reports that the arrests followed criminal complaints filed by Detective Lieutenant David Kokinda of the Lehigh University Police Department (LUPD) on September 6 against three of the students. The complaint for the fourth student, Evans Oppong, is still under review.
Prosecutors accuse the students of submitting falsified high school transcripts to Lehigh University’s Admissions Office, inflating their grades to gain admission to the esteemed private research institution. Court documents reveal that Opoku, who has been enrolled since 2022, received financial aid totaling $212,933, while Sowah-Nai and Dabuo, who both began their studies in 2023, were awarded $127,213 and $129,244 in financial aid, respectively.
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The investigation was prompted when Dan Warner, Lehigh’s Vice Provost of Admissions and Financial Aid, expressed concerns about the authenticity of a transcript submitted by Jude Dabuo, Henry Dabuo’s older brother, who had been accepted for the upcoming semester. The Admissions Office noted unusual markings, formatting issues, and spelling errors on the transcript, leading them to retract Jude Dabuo’s admission and scrutinize his younger brother’s application. This review uncovered similar irregularities in the applications of the other three students.
The four students are currently being held on $100,000 bail, and as of Monday, they have not been assigned legal representation. Friends have started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for their legal defense, including costs for bail reduction, commissary expenses, and attorney fees. The campaign reports that Opoku and Oppong had previously made Lehigh’s Dean’s List, which requires a GPA of 3.6 or higher.
Lehigh University officials and the Lehigh University Police Department (LUPD) have not commented further on the case. The GoFundMe campaign, initially set to raise $40,000, has been paused and replaced with a revised goal of $30,925 after raising $9,075.
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