School officials said a Republican candidate running for the GOP nomination in a Florida legislative seat lied about graduating from Miami University in Ohio and faked her diploma, according to a new report.
Melissa Howard, who wants a Sarasota-area state House seat, claimed that she earned a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from the Ohio school.
Florida political news website
FLA News Online originally reported that Howard did not earn the degree, but briefly retracted their story after Howard provided a photo posing with a copy of her diploma.
But after further investigation and confirmation with the university, FLA News
reported Saturday that the diploma was fake.
Sarasota's
Herald-Tribune confirmed with the university that Howard did not graduate.
Miami University general counsel Robin Parker told the outlets that while Howard attended the university, there is no record of her earning a degree in 1994 or 1996, as she previously claimed.
The school also reportedly said that they do not offer a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, and that Howard would have earned a Bachelor of Science in Family and Consumer Sciences if she had graduated with her Retailing major.
The diploma in the photo also reportedly displays signatures of university officials who would not have signed a diploma for a student graduating with a bachelor’s degree in that year.
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