Counselor's credentials questioned

The FBI is investigating the school that granted a degree to the man who evaluates PHCC police recruits.

By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 22, 2000

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Since the early 1990s, Marvin W. Kassed has screened hundreds of police academy recruits to determine their psychological fitness for a badge.

Now, the academy is questioning his academic fitness for the job.

Kassed, a New Port Richey mental health counselor, is one of two people the police academy at Pasco-Hernando Community College uses to gauge the psyches of recruits. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Southwestern University in Tucson, Ariz., dated 1982.

But the FBI, as part of a massive nationwide investigation, has named the school a prime purveyor of bogus degrees.

The signature at the bottom of Kassed's diploma, in fact, belongs to Anthony J. Geruntino, the school's former board chairman, who in 1985 was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges of mail and wire fraud in connection with diploma scams.

Kassed did not return phone calls from the Times, but he spoke through local private investigator Mike Holden, whom he has employed to investigate a malpractice lawsuit filed against him.

Kassed stands by his academic credentials, Holden said.

"He said, "I got it legit,' " Holden said Monday. "He says they were legitimate when he got them."

Kassed declined to comment further, Holden said, because he could not contact his attorney Tuesday. Holden said he could not divulge the attorney's name, at Kassed's request.

The FBI named Southwestern as part of its nationwide "Dipscam" probe of the 1980s, which uncovered dozens of diploma mills that grossed more than $2-million between 1979 and 1984. Thousands of phony degrees were sold, according to the FBI, some of them going to federal employees.

The police academy, alerted by the Times of the FBI's probe, said it would investigate the matter.

"If he's not who he says he is, there's no way in the world we can use him," said Dan Griffith, coordinator of the academy, who came to the school in 1993, after Kassed was already on board. "For all the things we do to check people's credentials, this guy certainly wasn't scrutinized that closely."

The psychologist's role at the academy is crucial, since he evaluates a recruit's maturity, integrity and emotional control, among other things, school directors said. Recruits undergo the evaluation as an entrance requirement.

"If he fails someone, then for the most part, for those people who fail, he's just effectively washed out their goal to be a law enforcement officer, because they're not going to be accepted to the academy," Griffith said. Griffith said law enforcement agencies do psychological screenings of their own once they hire an officer.

Griffith said the academy will ask to see Kassed's graduate school transcripts and look into whether Southwestern is legitimate.

Joanne Nelson, a New Port Richey mental health counselor who used to share offices with Kassed, said she worried about his credentials. When companies asked him to prove his degree, for example, he balked.

"Every time anybody questioned that, like managed care companies, he would immediately drop trying to be on their panel," she said. "You have to be on their panel to bill them. ... They don't always check the background totally, but some of them do."

Earlier this month, a former patient of Kassed filed suit in Pasco Circuit Court, saying he exploited their relationship to gain sexual favors. Linda Schwichtenberg, the Orlando lawyer representing the woman, said two other former female patients have contacted her, with similar allegations, since the suit was filed.

Kassed is the former chairman of the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of Greater Tampa Bay. Since 1997, Kassed has also served on the Health and Human Services Board for the Department of Children and Families, according to department spokeswoman Elaine Fulton-Jones.

Along with the diploma from Southwestern, Kassed also says he has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Rhode Island.

- Researchers Kitty Bennett and Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

- Times staff writer Christopher Goffard can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6236. His e-mail address is goffard@sptimes.com.

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