Laura Jean Fero, a former dean of nursing at St. Catherine University, did not apologize at her Wednesday sentencing for swindling from the St. Paul school through bogus contracts with a health care consultant she was dating.

Fero, 55, told Ramsey County District Judge DeAnne Hilgers she has remorse for “introducing a very manipulative person” to the university and said she was a “victim of that situation, as well.” She said she lost everything, including her home and profession of 30 years. “And I’m not saying I’m not taking accountability for introducing a person like that … that’s on me.”

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

Fero was charged last year with embezzling $400,000 from St. Kate’s, but reached an agreement with the prosecution and pleaded guilty to one count of theft by swindle.

Hilgers sentenced Fero to three years of probation, which was the maximum allowed under the plea deal. The judge followed the deal’s other terms — ordering Fero to pay $25,000 in restitution to St. Catherine and giving her a stay of imposition, which means the felony conviction will be considered a misdemeanor if she successfully completes probation.

Five other felony theft by swindle charges were dismissed at sentencing, which was attended by several of the school’s administrators and staff.

Kara Koschmann, the associate dean of nursing at St. Kate’s, read a victim impact statement on behalf of the university, saying Fero’s thievery “is a grievous breach of trust” that will have a “deep and lasting impact.”

“This was not a one-time theft driven by desperation or need,” Koschmann said. “She engaged in a calculated act of deception that targeted the good faith of St. Kate’s, its students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors and the entire university community.”

Hilgers said she recognized the plea agreement was reached after “a lot of work and effort” between the attorneys and the university, adding, “What happens here today does not fix the harm that’s been caused, and the work to fix that harm is going to last far longer than your probation.”

Boyfriend was acquitted

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.

St. Catherine officials discovered missing funds after Fero left for the Florida job. The university conducted an internal investigation, and reported its findings to St. Paul police in late November 2023. Fero was arrested on May 8, 2024, at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after arriving on a flight from Orlando, and charged two days later.

At Fero’s April 8 plea hearing, which she appeared via remote, she 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.

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Fero also admitted she didn’t disclose to school leadership that she was involved in a romantic relationship with Bruce, whom 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

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.”

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.

‘Deplorable’

In the university’s statement, Koschmann said a dean of nursing “holds ultimate responsibility” for ensuring that the nursing programs comply with federal, state and accreditation regulations, including those related to licensure, clinical practice and educational standards.

“To do so, a dean must exhibit the utmost integrity, accountability and ethical leadership,” she said. “To act deliberately counter to the values they expect from students, faculty and staff within the School of Nursing is deplorable.”

The money Fero stole “came from one of the university’s most generous donors” and was supposed to support student clinical and educational opportunities, and new program growth to boost enrollment.

Koschmann said Fero’s actions continue to have negative consequences on the university’s chances of securing state funding to support its programs and initiatives.

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As a part of applying for Minnesota state grants, Koschmann said, the university is asked if there have been any instances of misuse or fraud in the past three years.

“Because of Dr. Fero’s criminal conduct, we now have to answer yes, which automatically deducts five points from our application scores,” Koschmann said.

Fero told the court that through her financial, personal and spiritual loss, she has turned to weekly therapy and “really diving deep into that as to why I could be strong in one area of my life and very weak in another.”

“Luckily, I was able to persist through it and start healing,” she said. “So I look forward to continuing that journey in the future.”