A former dean of nursing at St. Catherine University has been arrested and charged with embezzling more than $400,000 from the St. Paul school through bogus contracts with a healthcare consultant she was dating.

Laura Jean Fero, 54, who now lives in Apopka, Fla., and works as dean of nursing and chief academic nurse at AdventHealth University in Orlando, was charged Friday in Ramsey County District Court with six counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle.

Laura Jean Fero (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Fero was arrested Wednesday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after arriving on a flight from Orlando. She made a first court appearance on the charges Friday, when bail was set at $75,000. She remained jailed Friday. Court records do not list an attorney for her.

The investigation into Fero’s conduct centered on St. Catherine contracts that she entered into with a 56-year-old man and his company.

The first one, in August 2020, for instance, was for a market and cost analysis for continuing education development and delivery for St. Catherine. Two others, in August 2021 and November 2022, were for outreach, marketing and “analysis of regional and potentially national geography for the university’s School of Health.”

A St. Paul Police Department review of financial records associated with the contracts revealed his company received six payments from St. Catherine, totaling $412,644, between Aug. 31, 2020, and Aug. 23, 2023.

The charges allege Fero “transferred significant funds” to the man over multiple years while he provided “little or no services to the university.”

The charges further allege that Fero and the man were “explicitly working together to take money from the university by abusing Fero’s position of trust and authority.”

Emails between Fero and the man showed they were in a romantic relationship, the charges say.

A case against the man is under review by the Ramsey County attorney’s office for possible charges, spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said Friday.

The two universities declined to comment on charges Friday. A St. Catherine spokeswoman said an investigation is still active, while a spokeswoman for AdventHealth said it does not comment on personnel or pending legal matters.

Missing funds

Fero was St. Catherine’s dean of nursing from June 2019 through Aug. 28, 2023, when she left for AdventHealth University. It was then that St. Catherine officials discovered missing funds and conducted an internal investigation, the charges say. The university reported its findings to St. Paul police in late November.

As dean of nursing, Fero authorized payments from St. Catherine without anyone else’s approval. She also held responsibilities to administer the university’s GHR Legacy Grant, which is dedicated to the university’s programs to prepare healthcare professionals.

Fero sent an email to the man 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, she can’t imagine life without him,” the charges say.

The investigation found additional emails indicating that Fero helped the man with at least some of the reports he was providing to the university to receive his contract funds, the charges allege.

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In October 2023, after Fero left St. Catherine for work in Orlando, she contacted the man and asked that he give her reports for the work he purportedly completed pursuant to a contract. The reports the man sent to St. Catherine differed significantly from reports he had previously sent to Fero directly while she was working for the university, the complaint alleges.

The man also sent the university a Word document explaining the services and reports he had been providing during the time periods of his contracts. The document was determined to have been authored by Fero after she had left the university.

The investigations by St. Catherine and police turned up additional emails between Fero and the man indicating they coordinated in submitting reports so he would continue to receive university funds, the complaint alleges. The emails consisted of Fero sending information to him to be included in his reports and invoices.

Did not disclose relationship

In an interview with police, Fero initially said she met the man 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.

St. Catherine has a workplace policy on conflicts of interest, the charges note.

Fero told police she did not disclose the relationship to her employer because she thought the conflict-of-interest policy only referred to married people, the charges say. Fero went on to say that she was untruthful earlier in the interview because she was “embarrassed” at how she met him.

Fero admitted to “editing” documents that the man submitted to St. Catherine, the charges say.

Fero also talked with police investigators about the process she used to enter into the university contracts with the man when she had authority to administer GHR Legacy Grant funds. She described a hiring committee for the grant involving three other university employees and said they were in agreement to hire him and his company.

However, committee meeting minutes contradict Fero’s description of the purported process used to contract with him, the charges say. St. Catherine officials also told police the university’s process would include a request for proposals.

“The investigation evidence points to Fero concealing the contracts with the man at issue as well as how Fero went about authorizing the contracts that eventually paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to him,” the charges allege.

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