A former Rhodes and Fulbright scholar already charged with student-loan fraud was indicted Thursday on six more counts of fraud by a federal grand jury in Anchorage.
Rachel Yould, 37, was charged with lying on her mortgage application for her downtown Anchorage condo.
The former academic star already faces 10 counts against her for allegedly defrauding student loan companies to amass some $600,000 in student loans. Prosecutors say she used a second Social Security number to get some of the money. She obtained the second identity through a federal program for victims of domestic violence.
Yould denies the charges.
Some national domestic violence activists are rallying around Yould, calling the government irresponsible for outing her and putting her in danger from her stalker.
"We knew this was coming out today. It was no surprise to us but it is a little more than we expected," said California domestic violence activist Valerie Harris, speaking on behalf of Yould. "So now she's in the position where she's more heinous that Bernie Madoff?" (Ponzi scheme figure Madoff was convicted of 11 felony counts. Yould now faces 16.)
Yould was working on her Ph.D. from Oxford University when the investigation began. She was Miss Anchorage in 1996 and says she worked with Mother Teresa.
She had been living in Japan since 2001, working at Keio University, when the investigation into her finances began.
The new charges say Yould applied for and received a cheaper resident-rate mortgage but never lived in the condo. Prosecutors say she lied about her income, including submitting a falsified W-2 Internal Revenue Service form.
According to city property records, the condo, near the Hilton Anchorage hotel, is worth about $145,000.
THE STUDENT LOANS
The original charges, filed in March, were scheduled for trial in March 2010; it is not clear how the new charges will affect that date.
Prosecutors say that beginning in June 2003, Yould cheated the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, Stafford Loans and Sallie Mae Corp. by exceeding the lifetime maximum loans allowed under one name and identity, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Retta Randall's October response to a defense motion. Yould used her second identity to take out more student loans for which she was not eligible, Randall wrote.
Prosecutors also say that in 2004, Yould lied to a Hong Kong bank, saying she had an annual income of $525,000 from a U.K.-based think tank. But, in fact, Yould had only volunteered once as a research assistant at the think tank, prosecutors say.
Some other specific allegations named in the government's case include that Yould applied for two loans on the same date in November 2005 for $60,000 each. One application was under her Yould identity. The other application was under her second identity, Rachel Hall. She did the same again on a date in May 2006 -- applying for two different loans under the two identities, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors say Yould then used the money for non-educational purposes, including the escrow payment for the condo, investing in a for-profit business and putting money into a Smith Barney investment account in Hong Kong.
YOULD'S SIDE
Yould says she hasn't done anything wrong. She's not talking but her supporters say that any errors on Yould's part were because of poor advice from the Social Security Administration.
The complicated finances under two names and identities were not a mistake or accident, prosecutors say.
Yould got the second Social Security number under a little-known 1997 Social Security Administration policy. Every year, about 600 people apply and a little more than half are approved for a second number, according to the Social Security Administration. The goal is to prevent stalkers from locating victims through their numbers.
Yould says she is a legitimate victim of domestic violence. She accuses her father of physical and mental abuse. He has never been charged criminally.
Yould kept up with her loan payments for years, Harris said. It was only after the investigation began several years ago and one loan company quadrupled its payment requirements without due process did the loans become too burdensome, she said. Yould and her family and her husband's family cashed out their 401(k)s, took out second mortgages and sold assets to meet the demands of the accelerated $13,000-a-month payments, Harris said.
Yould defaulted shortly before she was indicted, Harris said.
Irene Weiser, executive director of the New York-based Stop Family Violence, is on Yould's side. "This is a house of cards built on the fact that she's been assigned two Social Security numbers because of being in the domestic-violence identity-change program," she said. "They can stack it as high as they want but that's what it comes down to. ... It's a house of cards, and it won't hold up."
Yould is now in Anchorage, out on bail. She changes addresses frequently, staying with different friends or relatives so her father cannot find her, Harris said.
Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.
By MEGAN HOLLAND
mholland@adn.com