Inmate sues SCCC over issue with student loan

PHOTOGRAPHER: Michael Goot

A former Albany man currently in a Dutchess County prison is suing Schenectady County Community College for $10 million because they put his student loan into default despite his never setting foot in a classroom.

Otis Michael Bridgeforth, 27, who is currently at Downstate Correctional Facility, filed the lawsuit in March. He says he was accepted to be a student at SCCC in the fall of 2007 and play basketball and received a federally subsidized Stafford student loan.

However, before he started classes, he was arrested Aug. 13, 2007 and charged with second-degree attempted weapons possession.

Bridgeforth had a 9 mm pistol without valid permit, according to Linda Foglia, spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Corrections. In November 2007, he was sentenced to 2 1⁄2 years in prison.

He was released in February 2010 and just last week sent back to jail for a parole violation. The exact nature of the violation was not available.

In his 15-page, mostly handwritten complaint, Bridgeforth claims that he never attended SCCC and college officials put his student loan into default without benefit of due process.

“The plaintiff never received a hearing, and instantly is deprived of the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with the ability to attend a college or university, without paying tuition costs and no financial assistance, depriving the plaintiff of a great student and professional calibre athlete, amongst the elite,” he wrote in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit lists defendants as the SCCC president, dean of student affairs, dean of administration and athletics director. Bridgeforth seeks recovery of the defaulted student loans and a monetary payment of $10 million.

Jonathan M. Bernstein, of the law firm Goldberg Segalla, is representing SCCC, according to court documents. The college must file its response to the lawsuit by July 2, and an initial conference has been set for Aug. 23 at 9:30 a.m. in Albany before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge David R. Homer.

Bridgeforth will be transferred to another prison after being processed downstate.

The earliest he can be released is December of this year, Foglia said.

He has filed more than 40 lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Education, America Educational Services, Rensselaer County Public Safety Building, Division of Parole, the Wilmington (Del.) Police Department and New Castle County Police Department.

SCCC spokeswoman Heather Meaney said the college had no response to the lawsuit.