Education Department says it doesn’t send SWAT teams after loan defaulters

Original Post: Yahoo

By Liz Goodwin

A Stockton, Calif., man says a SWAT team broke his door and dragged him out of his house during an unexpected 6 a.m. raid targeting his estranged ex-wife.

Kenneth Wright, who has no criminal record, told ABC News 10 he complained to the local cops about the raid. But according to Wright, the Stockton police denied ordering the raid, saying instead it was the handiwork of the federal Department of Education.

Wright told the station that the Education Department was after unpaid federal loans owed by his ex-wife. "They busted my door for this," Wright says. The claim has been repeated by numerous news outlets who picked up the story, including Fox News, The Huffington Post, and Gawker. (UPDATE: The station has replaced the story with a newer version that does not make the claim the raid was for late loan payments.)

But Education Department Press Secretary Justin Hamilton said in a statement to The Lookout that the department "does not execute search warrants for late loan payments." He said the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) "conducts about 30-35 search warrants a year on issues such as bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds." Hamilton said the department cannot comment on this particular case until the investigation is over, but did add that the claim the warrant was executed for late loan payment is untrue. The raid was related to a criminal investigation of Wright's wife.

The OIG lists some of its recent investigations on its website, including the case of a Boston man who was sent to prison last month for lying on a federal student aid form.

About 8.9 percent of all federal loan recipients (about 330,000 people) defaulted between 2008 and 2010, the highest percentage in more than a decade. Unlike students who have some types of private student loans, borrowers with federal loans can't declare bankruptcy as a way to get out of repayment, no matter how dire their financial situation.

Still, Wright was not the subject of the agency's investigation, and he is demanding an apology for being treated like a criminal in his own home. He animatedly explains in this video that he was handcuffed while still in his underwear and was made to wait in a police car for several hours with his three young children while the 15 law enforcement officers searched his house.

Wright says he wants an apology and for the Department of Education to fix his door. "Please pay your bills, take care of your credit," he says. "If you don't believe me, this could be you one morning, 6 o'clock in the morning."