The owner and operator of two South Florida nursing schools pleaded guilty for her role in a scheme to sell fake nursing school degrees to thousands of people, authorities said.
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Carleen Noreus, 52, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to money laundering following a two-week trial in Fort Lauderdale, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said Thursday.
Noreus, of Plantation, had been president of Carleen Home Health School, Inc. in Plantation and vice president of Carleen Home Health School II, Inc. in West Palm Beach.
Prosecutors said she conspired with others to sell fraudulent nursing diplomas and transcripts to people who hadn’t completed the required coursework, enabling them to take national nursing board examinations.
Between April 2018 and October 2025, Noreus was responsible for providing 2,956 fraudulent nursing diplomas through the schools, prosecutors said.
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Of those, around 2,274 passed nursing board examinations, allowing them to obtain nursing licenses and work as nurses in Florida and across the country, authorities said.
State authorities have since terminated both schools.
Noreus faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count at sentencing.
“Nursing licenses must be earned through education, training, and demonstrated competence, not purchased through fraud,” U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement. “By selling thousands of fraudulent diplomas and transcripts, the defendant undermined the integrity of the nursing profession and our healthcare system. The Southern District of Florida remains committed to holding accountable those who profit by corrupting professional licensing processes and placing the public at risk.”
The investigation of Noreus is part of the second phase of “Operation Nightingale,” which has been targeting fraudulent nursing diploma schemes operated by for-profit nursing schools in South Florida.
Noreus is one of 13 defendants charged in the second phase, while 30 others were charged and convicted in the first phase in 2023, authorities said.
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