It was surprising enough for Marquette students to learn the man in charge of their university would live among them in Campus Town East. Imagine learning he lives in a prison cell—and your university is a fraud.

That’s the scam tried by Kenneth Shong, 45, an inmate at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. On Tuesday, Shong appeared in a Winnebago County court on charges of fraudulent writings, accused of running a fraudulent degree mill from prison.

According to court documents, Shong approached fellow OCI inmate Kenneth Fleming about enrolling with the fictional Carlingford University after Shong discovered that he was interested in studying to become a paralegal. Shong showed Fleming a catalogue detailing the “school’s” programs and convinced him that Carlingford was accredited.

After having his mother pay $1740.50 in tuition, Fleming received three textbooks and began to receive coursework, but he started to become suspicious after noticing delays in receiving his grades and further lessons. Fleming later discovered that Carlingford was not accredited at all, and eventually filed a consumer complaint in August 2008 to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Documents also revealed that Shong used other inmates to help advance his scheme. David Kaster, another OCI inmate, was approached by Shong, who asked him to help expand Carlingford’s presence after his release from prison. According to Kaster, Shong told him that he bought Carlingford when he lived in Greece and moved it from Ireland to the United Kingdom and that he wanted to raise Carlingford’s profile in the United States by establishing regional training centers across the country.

Kaster then opened a post office box in Green Bay for the new “regional training center” from which he received applications and correspondence from duped students. He also worked to maintain Carlingford’s website before being told to close Carlingford’s bank accounts and P.O. boxes by his probation officer after being informed that Carlingford was not a legitimate institution.

Shong’s criminal history goes back over twenty years. In 1988, he was convicted of three felony charges, but was paroled in 1993. In 2002, he was arrested in Vanuatu and extradited to the United States and convicted of federal tax evasion. According to a Jan. 11 article by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Shong spent much of his life as a Cyprus diplomat, a position that nation has described as only honorary.