Class action lawsuit being filed against Stone Academy

(WFSB) - Former Stone Academy Students are now taking action against their former college.

A class action lawsuit is being filed against stone and its owners.

Stone Academy abruptly closed all 3 of its Connecticut campuses in February. Ever since, hundreds of students have been waiting to learn if their credits will count and if they’ll get their money back.

The state’s Office of Higher Education says an audit found up to 20% of Stone teachers were unqualified and many of the clinicals were not done properly. Because of the violations, the state is asking recent Stone graduates to take a “refresher course” before receiving their license.

The law firm Hurwitz, Sagarin, Slossberg and Knuff in Milford is filing a class action lawsuit against Stone Academy and its owners. 8 students are named in the lawsuit, but the firm estimate the lawsuit will apply to around one thousand students in the end.

“It shouldn’t have happened and hopefully with this lawsuit we can provide some measure of relief for them,” said attorney David Slossberg.

One of the defendants is Career Training Specialists, LLC, the company that ran Stone. The defendants also include former mangers and owners: Joseph Bierbaum, Mark Scheinberg, Richard Scheinberg and Gary Evans.

The lawsuit says all of the defendants played a role in breaking the school’s contract with students. The lawsuit alleges they were dishonest with students about the quality of education they were signing up for and “sold the class members tickets to a sinking ship.”

“It sure looks to us like they knew they couldn’t do what they were doing and went forward with it anyway, and they passed the program off to students as legitimate and accredited and as viable for this degree and it wasn’t. And they knew it,” said Slossberg.

The attorney for Stone Academy itself, Perry Rowthorn sent the I-team the following statement:

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