Renaissance Academy (Nevada)

“Former charter school administrator arrested.” KTNV Las Vegas (NV), 4/9/2013

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- A man at the center of a Contact 13 investigation is facing charges that he defrauded the state and stole $1.3 million tax dollars all under the guise of education.

Chief investigator Darcy Spears first broke the story last July.

For charter schools, more kids means more money.

And it seems Roy Harden knew that.

Instead of diplomas and educated kids, his legacy includes allegations of theft, forgery and a shut-down school.

Renaissance Academy was an online charter school that barely got off the ground before it was shut down by the state...

As Contact 13 first reported last summer, the State Public Charter School Authority found forged and doctored documents from attendance logs to student transcripts.

The man running Renaissance was Roy Harden, who started the school as administrator at the age of 26.

"He was never a teacher. He was never an administrator. I don't even know if he finished college," former Renaissance teacher Katherine von Collenberg told us last July.

Harden now stands accused of theft and multiple counts of forgery by the Nevada Attorney General.

The criminal complaint they filed about a week ago says Harden lied to the Nevada Department of Education, falsely inflating Renaissance's student enrollment.

That resulted in an over-payment of $1.3 million tax dollars...