Delaware

Delaware certified bogus degree of school counselor charged with raping child

Published

1 year ago

July 25, 2024

Delaware certified bogus degree of school counselor charged with raping child

Arnold never ‘attended or earned degree from Ohio University’

After police announced his arrest, WHYY News spoke with three close relatives who said Arnold never lived in Ohio or went to college there, either in person or virtually.

When WHYY News initially asked Lawson last week about Arnold’s possible falsification of his resume, she said the state — not the district — is responsible for verifying academic credentials that allow educators to get salary enhancements.

“The ultimate verifier of doctoral degrees, and master’s degrees … is the Delaware Department of Education,” Lawson said. “We have a letter on file from DDOE that verifies every employee’s graduate credential/licensure in order for that employee to be paid at the doctoral level.”

Brandywine Superintendent Lisa Lawson says no students were harmed, but says she’s “horrified” by the accusations against a trusted district psychologist. (Brandywine School District)

The state’s searchable public certification website, known as DEEDS (Delaware Educator Data System), shows that Arnold has a master’s degree in psychology and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Ohio University’s main campus in the town of Athens. No doctorate in philosophy is listed.

While waiting for an answer from Ohio University last week about whether Arnold graduated or attended the school, WHYY News asked the Department of Education how officials certified that he had the degrees he had claimed.

A reporter also informed the state that relatives said he never lived in Ohio and the school did not offer advanced psychology degrees online.

Education Secretary Mark Holodick, a former Brandywine superintendent, and other state education officials would not agree to be interviewed about Arnold and his credentials.

But spokesperson Alison May replied in writing that Arnold’s “applications for graduate salary increments were validated by DDOE. Ohio University did offer this doctorate at the time of his attendance.”

May’s email did not explain how the state verified the degrees.

Dan Pittman, Ohio University’s communications director, later confirmed, however, that Arnold never “attended, or earned a degree from, Ohio University at any time.”

WHYY News shared that disclosure by the university with May, who several hours later sent a written statement acknowledging that the salary boost based on Arnold having a doctorate “was approved in error.”

May added that the state was trying to determine how that occurred.

“The department will be investigating how this approval was made and how to improve practices and our systems checks to prevent this kind of error from happening again,” May wrote. “We are alerting law enforcement, who will manage any investigation into potential false documentation.”

May also shared the state’s regulation for approving advanced degrees, and offered a partial explanation of how Arnold was able to exploit the state’s certification system.

The rule specifies that transcripts can be submitted by the university directly to the district, but that the state “in its discretion may also accept verification of an official transcript by other means if the authenticity of the transcript can be made.”

In Arnold’s case, May wrote that he applied for the higher salary when he was hired in October 2021, and “the transcripts used for this graduate salary increment (GSI) approval were submitted by the applicant directly.”

The state issued the approval letter in July 2022, and made his salary boost retroactive to his hiring date nine months earlier.

“The Department of Education recognizes your education level as a Doctorate Degree,” said the approval letter to Arnold and shared with Brandywine. WHYY News obtained the letter under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Asked for further explanation of how the fake transcripts were approved, May wrote that the state “can answer questions related to its findings once complete.”

Montagne said that in the past, when similar issues arose with an educator’s credentials, there usually weren’t “any repercussions. People are shocked and then nothing happens.”

But in Arnold’s case, where someone who faked advanced degrees has been charged with repeatedly raping a child, those responsible for the “ludicrous” error need to be disciplined and possibly fired, she said.

“Delaware’s a small state, so this wasn’t lost in bureaucracy,” Montagne said. “This is probably one or two people that aren’t doing their job. I don’t understand the reluctance that we have to just move on from people that are incompetent.”

Lawon said the debacle with Arnold’s degrees makes it painfully obvious that it’s time for the state, as well as all 19 Delaware school districts and charter schools, to double down on verifying that job candidates aren’t faking their credentials.

“This circumstance causes us all to look at our processes and procedures,” Lawson said. “After seeing what Ohio University wrote, what can we all do to make sure that this doesn’t happen again?”

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Delaware

Wilmington’s first homicide of 2026 claims life of 19-year-old

Published

2 hours ago

January 9, 2026

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Wilmington’s first homicide of 2026 claims life of 19-year-old

A 19-year-old man was shot dead in Wilmington’s Southbridge neighborhood in the early hours of Jan. 9, police said.

Wilmington officers arriving to the 200 block of S. Claymont St. about 3:30 a.m. found the teen there.

The teen, whom police have not named, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Anyone with information about this shooting should contact Wilmington Police Detective Derek Haines at (302) 576-3656. People can also provide information to Delaware Crime Stoppers at (800) TIP-3333 or delawarecrimestoppers.com.

Violence by the numbers

This is the first homicide reported this year in Delaware, which last year saw a slight drop in all violent killings.

Delaware police reported 52 people being killed in violent crimes in 2025, a drop of nearly 12% when compared with 59 people killed in 2024, according to a Delaware Online/The News Journal database.

While the number of people killed in homicides statewide is down, the number of people killed by gunfire in Delaware was up in 2025 for the third year in a row.

According to the Delaware Online database, 47 were shot dead in Delaware last year. That was one more victim (46) than in 2024, three more (44) than in 2023 and nine more (38) than in 2022.

Despite the increase in gun-related deaths, there were fewer people shot last year in Delaware for the second year in a row.

Police reported 164 people being shot last year in Delaware. The previous year saw 195 people shot and police reported 210 people being shot in 2023.

This was the fewest people shot in Delaware since 2018, when police reported 146 people being shot statewide.

Send tips or story ideas to Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.

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Delaware

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

Published

14 hours ago

January 9, 2026

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MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

A dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach on Jan. 8, according to the nonprofit Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The juvenile male was first seen Jan. 6, floating at sea about 2 miles off the Indian River Inlet, a MERR Facebook post said. The bloated 30-foot whale ultimately beached near a private community in the early afternoon of Jan. 8, the post said.

MERR is attempting to coordinate with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to get equipment to move the whale out of the water and onto the beach to perform a necropsy, the post said. Right now, there isn’t enough information to determine a cause of death.

Delaware saw at least three dead whales last year, in the Indian River Bay, at Delaware Seashore State Park and at Pigeon Point. The first two were humpbacks, while the Pigeon Point whale was a fin whale.

A necropsy on the Delaware Seashore whale found blunt force trauma across its back, indicating it may have been struck by a ship, MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said.

Recently, on Jan. 4, a dead fin whale was found on the bow of a ship at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is located in the Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

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Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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