US Attorney on Olivet University Case, Charges May Come “Soon,” Court Told

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in California’s Central District is investigating a criminal case against Olivet University and any charges would need to be filed “soon” before the statute of limitations run out, a court document showed.

Olivet University, founded by Korean-American cleric David Jang, has been under federal investigation at least since agents of the Homeland Security Investigations raided its campus in the California town of Anza three years ago looking for evidence of visa fraud, money laundering and labor trafficking.

“This case is under investigation,” Peter Dahlquist, Assistant United States Attorney, wrote in an email to Darren Harris, a lawyer for a group of former Olivet University students who are suing Jang and the college.

“[Assistant U.S. Attorney] Erin Kiss was recently assigned to the investigation and she will be working on the case going forward,” Dahlquist said in the email, attached to a motion to stay the civil case against Olivet and other defendants that Harris filed in Central California’s District Court, and which is now part of the public record. Dahlquist is Deputy Chief of the Riverside Branch Office of the United States Attorney’s Office.

Kiss, who works at the Riverside County branch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, later spoke with Harris. According to the motion, “Ms. Kiss did not indicate when a criminal case would be filed but acknowledged that due to statute of limitations issues, a case would need to be filed soon.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment.

Olivet has repeatedly denied that it was under federal investigation and accused Newsweek of fabricating reports of the probe and other legal developments to influence a shareholder dispute. Newsweek is owned by two former members of David Jang’s Olivet sect and some of the disputes over their break with Jang’s disciples are still playing out in court.

Olivet University did not respond to Newsweek‘s request for comment.

Harris, the lawyer who contacted the U.S. Attorney’s office, represents a group of former Olivet University students in a civil suit that claims they were trafficked by Jang and his followers who lured them to the United States with offers of full scholarships and then forced them into manual labor without pay. Olivet has denied the accusations and countersued the students.

Harris —who declined Newsweek‘s request for comment—and the lawyer for the defendants, Kipp Muir, agreed to seek a stay in the civil proceedings because California and federal laws on labor trafficking require a pause in civil cases when a criminal investigation is underway, the motion said.

The lawyers asked the court to reconvene the parties in October for an update on the criminal probe.

The court has yet to rule on the stay request in the civil suit, which names Jang, Olivet University, and some of Jang’s most senior disciples including Matthias Gebhardt, Olivet’s president, Andrew Lin, a former chair of Olivet’s board, and Stephanie Choi, Gebhardt’s wife. Newsweek contacted the defendants through their lawyer for comment.

Various members of Jang’s sect, the World Olivet Assembly, have faced legal troubles for much of the past decade, including a money laundering probe in Manhattan which ended in several guilty pleas, a counterfeit goods case in North Carolina, a racketeering suit in Texas and numerous tax and business disputes around the country.

News of a U.S. Attorney investigation comes at a critical time for Olivet University, which was expanding rapidly across North America before its legal troubles began. The college has now been shut down or placed under review in at least 10 states and territories. And it faces another key test this month when an administrative hearing will determine whether California will shut down the school for 14 alleged violations of state rules.

The California complaint against Olivet was filed to the state’s Department of Consumer Affairs by state Attorney General Rob Bonta after representatives of the Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education for the State of California inspected Olivet campuses in late 2022.