Years later, DiAiso said, he approached the university about finishing his dissertation and was told he would have to be back at the campus to earn his degree. He wasn't interested, he said.
"So I wanted to look into if there were any schools that would recognize that work I had done," he said. "That's what I did with St. Regis University."
He said he sent transcripts - and money - in hopes of finishing up his degree but abandoned the effort when he realized that the institution seemed to be "primarily an organization that gives a degree to anyone."
DiAiso said he never claimed to hold a doctorate in his capacity as a community college trustee and that he often conditioned his claim to a doctorate degree with the "A.B.D." tag, though on the Web site for his company, The Tech Group Inc., he is listed as "Robert DiAiso, P.E., AICP, PhD, President."
Alan Contreras, administrator of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, said society "grossly overvalues paper credentials."
"People feel like they absolutely have to collect them for reasons of self-esteem and professional advancement," he said. "And if we didn't put too much value on all this paper, the market for this bogus credential would largely go away."
Ezell, the former FBI agent, said some of the customers purchase the degrees not to advance their careers but for the satisfaction of achieving a lifetime goal.
"It's that elusive doctorate. It's an ego thing. They want to be called 'doctor,' " Ezell said. "In a sense, there's no harm, but it gives funding to an operation and allowed it to keep working."
justin.fenton@baltsun.com
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
