Michael Perik, a Jamestown, Rhode Island businessman married to Rhode Island Democratic Party Chair Liz Beretta-Perik, has been indicted on a dozen charges by an Ohio grand jury accusing him of running a scheme that siphoned roughly $20 million from Eastern Gateway Community College before the school collapsed entirely. The charges include first-degree felony racketeering, aggravated theft, telecommunications fraud, bribery, money laundering and theft in office.
Ohio Auditor Keith Faber announced the charges against Perik and two others on October 8, according to the Providence Journal. The 24-count indictment, returned in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court, charges Perik and co-defendant Nicole Rowe Colclasure with a dozen felony counts each. Colclasure's charges include first-degree felony racketeering, aggravated theft of $1.5 million or more, telecommunications fraud, bribery, money laundering and theft in office, according to the Ohio Auditor of State. Former college president Michael Geoghegan faces nine felony counts of his own, per a joint statement from his attorney and Colclasure's attorney reported by Business Journal Daily.
Perik co-founded Student Resource Center in 2015 and led the company as CEO. Student Resource Center partnered with Eastern Gateway Community College to run low-cost, debt-free education programs for union members and their families, per the Providence Journal. Prosecutors allege Student Resource Center diverted Pell Grants, other federal financial aid and state subsidies through fraudulent reimbursements and illegal incentive payments, and that the resulting scheme contributed to the college's eventual closure.
How a Regional College Became an Online Giant
The scale of the operation prosecutors describe is striking. Between 2017 and 2022, Eastern Gateway Community College's enrollment expanded from roughly 8,500 students to more than 60,000, with over 90 percent of students taking courses entirely online through the union-focused free tuition program, according to Inside Higher Ed. The partnership turned a small eastern Ohio institution, established in 1968 as Jefferson County Technical Institute, into one of the state's largest online education providers almost overnight.
That growth unraveled in 2022, when the U.S. Department of Education placed Eastern Gateway on Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 and ordered it to halt the free college program after finding that Pell Grant recipients were effectively charged higher net tuition than non-Pell students, per Higher Ed Dive. The college had also been placed on probation by the Ohio Higher Learning Commission in 2021, according to the Providence Journal. Following the 2022 federal sanction, the college paused enrollment after spring 2024, and classes were not scheduled to start that summer. The college was closed by operation of law on September 30, 2025, per the Ohio Office of Budget and Management.
Prosecutors Allege Inside Access and Hidden Payments
The indictment states that the criminal enterprise generally functioned to operate Eastern Gateway primarily for the financial benefit of entities owned and operated by Michael J. Perik and Nicole Rowe, at the expense of the college's mission, according to the Providence Journal. Among the specific allegations: Student Resource Center executive Luis Rosa was paid approximately $80,000 by Perik's company in 2018 while simultaneously serving as the college's interim financial aid director with full access to internal aid systems, according to the Times Leader. Rosa was not named as a criminal defendant in the indictment.
Faber said public resources intended to help disadvantaged students were instead apparently exploited, leaving students without support, per the Providence Journal. U.S. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent joined Ohio state officials at the October press conference to highlight federal involvement in the case, framing it as part of a broader push against financial aid fraud and administrative abuse in postsecondary education, according to the Ohio Auditor of State.
Defense Calls Indictment Political
Perik's attorney, Brad Barbin, rejected the indictment as purely political payback, according to GoLocalProv, and said the college's operations had been reviewed. Defense attorneys David Axelrod and Karl Schneider, representing Geoghegan and Colclasure, issued a joint statement asserting that college operations were fully transparent and subjected to continuous reviews by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Ohio Attorney General, per Business Journal Daily.
The criminal case follows an earlier civil dispute. Perik was sued in federal court in Delaware and Ohio over the June 2021 sale of Student Resource Center, which Sterling Small Market Education Fund, L.P. purchased for $120 million, according to the Providence Journal. Student Resource Center derived 95 percent of its revenue from Eastern Gateway, and Sterling alleged that Perik and others failed to disclose the college's accreditation trouble before the sale. Perik's lawyer called those claims meritless.
A Rhode Island Political Backdrop
Liz Beretta-Perik, Michael Perik's wife, chairs the Rhode Island Democratic Party, a position she won in November 2023 after previously serving as state party treasurer and a DNC committeewoman, according to Ballotpedia. Beretta-Perik has not been named or implicated in the indictment.
The Providence Journal reported it left messages with the Periks seeking comment on the new indictment and described the story as developing and subject to updates.
