An ex-dean of nursing at St. Catherine University charged last year with embezzling $400,000 from the school through bogus contracts with her boyfriend pleaded guilty to one count of theft by swindle Tuesday and will be put on probation.
Laura Jean Fero, 55, reached a plea agreement with Ramsey County prosecution that includes up to three years of probation and a stay of imposition, which means the felony conviction will be considered a misdemeanor is she successfully completes probation. Five other felony theft by swindle charges will be dismissed at sentencing, which is set for June 11.
Laura Jean Fero (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
Fero was St. Catherine’s dean of nursing from June 2019 through Aug. 28, 2023, when she left the St. Paul private college to take a job as dean of nursing and chief academic nurse at AdventHealth University in Orlando. She’s no longer employed by the university.
Fero, who now lives in Boone, N.C., appeared for Tuesday’s plea hearing via remote. Upon questioning on facts of the case, Fero admitted she entered into contracts with Juan Ramon Bruce, 57, a Shakopee health care consultant, beginning in August 2020, and that she didn’t follow the university’s process of seeking requests for proposals beforehand.
Fero also admitted she didn’t disclose to school leadership she was involved in a romantic relationship with Bruce, who she met in 2020 on a dating website.
For the count in which she pleaded guilty, Fero affirmed a statement by Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Tom Madison that Bruce was not “producing appropriate or expected work for the size of the contract.”
Bruce was charged with the same six counts three days after Fero. A jury in July deliberated less than four hours before acquitting him of all charges. His attorney, Debra Hilstrom, told the Pioneer Press after the verdict, “We said from the very beginning that Mr. Bruce did the work that he was hired to do.”
They met on Elitesingles.com
St. Catherine officials discovered missing funds after Fero left for the Florida job. The university conducted an internal investigation. The university reported its findings to St. Paul police in late November 2023.
A police review of financial records showed Bruce’s company, JB & Associates LLC, received six payments from St. Catherine, totaling $412,644, between August 2020 and August 2023. The contracted work included outreach, marketing and market and cost analysis for continuing education development and delivery for the Catholic liberal arts school in St. Paul’s Highland Park area.
The charges against Fero say she sent an email to Bruce in October 2020 where she referenced meeting him on a dating website. Several emails she sent one day in July 2022 mentioned how they have traveled together to many places over the previous two years and how “she loves him deeply.”
Related Articles
California man arrested near Justice Kavanaugh’s home with a gun pleads guilty to attempted murder
Brooklyn Park driver charged in Wisconsin crash that killed restaurant owner David Burley
Idaho mom who killed 2 of her kids goes on trial over death of her husband
Little Canada man pleads guilty to strangling sex worker in Eagan hotel room
St. Paul resident federally indicted in MS-13 gang-related murder in Florida
The charges say a review of Fero’s university credit card showed she racked up $26,191 in expenses — airfare, rental cars, hotels and airport parking — for trips with Bruce to Miami, Atlanta and Phoenix in 2021, Cancun in 2022 and Orlando in 2023.
The investigation found additional emails indicating that Fero helped Bruce with some of the reports he was providing to the university to receive his contract funds, the charges say.
In an interview with police, Fero initially said she met Bruce from a “cold call” to St. Catherine about medical supplies and that they were not in a relationship prior to the university contracting with him. Fero later said she had met him on the dating website Elitesingles.com and that she believed the relationship did not constitute a conflict of interest.
Fero admitted to police to “editing” documents that Bruce submitted to St. Catherine, the charges say.
Leave a Reply