PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island Democratic Party Chairwoman Liz Beretta-Perik resigned Tuesday after her husband was indicted on charges of stealing approximately $20 million in Pell grants and other federal and state subsidies from a now-defunct community college in Ohio.
Beretta-Perik sent a terse letter to state Democratic Party executive committee members at 12:22 p.m. Tuesday. “I am resigning effective today as Chair of the Rhode Island Democratic Party,” she wrote. “Thank you.”
News of Michael Perik’s indictment comes two weeks before the Nov. 3 general election. Early voting is already underway.
Helena Buonanno Foulkes and Aaron Guckian, the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor, respectively, had both called for Beretta-Perik to step down.
Beretta-Perik, who is not named in the indictment and is not charged with a crime, did not immediately return calls and texts seeking comment.
A prolific Democratic fund-raiser, Beretta-Perik was elected chairwoman of the Rhode Island Democratic Party in 2023, becoming the first woman to hold that position.
Michael Perik, of Jamestown, R.I., faces a dozen felony charges alleging that he and two co-defendants ran a scheme that diverted financial aid funds from Eastern Gateway Community College in Steubenville, Ohio, through fraudulent reimbursements and unlawful incentive payments to for-profit entities he owned in Ohio and Rhode Island between 2017 and 2022.
Perik’s attorney denies any crime, calling the charges “pure political payback.”
Perik allegedly used four separate for-profit entities he owned to pull off the fraud, including the Student Resource Center, where he was the chief executive. The indictment, filed in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court on Oct. 7, also charges Perik’s business partner, Nicole Rowe Colclasure, and Michael Geoghegan, the college’s chief financial officer and president.
One of Perik’s companies, Higher Education Partners, first contracted with the college in May 2012 to assist “with expansion of its academic and degree program offerings” at its Youngstown campus, according to the indictment, which said the agreement was amended in 2016 to include online education. Another of Perik’s entities began working with the school in 2017 to provide a “Free College Benefit Program,” funded through Pell grants, the indictment states.
Prosecutors allege Perik violated federal law as his companies did not act as independent third-party contractors with the college, but “instead exercised significant and improper influence” over the school, controlling “attendance verification, enrollment, fees, access to financial aid, and other critical functions at the college.”
“They hid behind contracts to fool regulators and then disregarded those contracts and engaged in activities to control enrollment and financial aid for the purpose of maximizing their incentive compensation,” the indictment states.
Over the five-year period, enrollment at the college increased dramatically, to 60,000 students from about 8,500 — the vast majority enrolled online and out of state, according to the Ohio Auditor of State’s office.
Perik and his co-conspirators allegedly gave aid to ineligible students and failed to confirm whether students actually attended classes, officials with the auditor’s office said in a press release.
“As a result, millions of dollars in financial aid were improperly paid to entities owned and controlled by Perik and Colclasure,” officials said.
Ohio officials allege the scheme contributed to the closing of the college in September 2025. Opened in the upper Ohio Valley in 1968, the school offered two-year programs serving families of steelworkers; workers that required retraining as factories closed across the Rust Belt; and high school graduates who could not afford to relocate, according to the indictment.
Pell grants are named for the late US Senator Claiborne Pell, a Rhode Island Democrat who championed the federal financial aid for low- and moderate-income college students. Formerly known as the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, the program has helped tens of millions of Americans pay for college.
“These public resources were supposed to help disadvantaged students in an area of the state where educational opportunities were scarce,” said Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber, who announced the indictment on Oct. 8 alongside US Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent. “Instead, it appears these individuals took advantage of their positions, and students were left out in the cold.”
Brad Barbin, an attorney representing Perik, said in a statement, “There was no crime committed by Mr. Perik or any lack of transparency on Mr. Perik’s part.”
The college’s operations had been reviewed by numerous state and federal agencies for over a decade, and by two federal courts, Barbin said.
“Further, in agreeing to the dismissal of a federal court action against the college after a lengthy investigation, the Department of Justice in 2024 stated that the public interest did ‘not warrant the continued expenditure of government resources to pursue or monitor the action,’” Barbin said. “Through no fault of his own, Michael Perik, followed all of the Ohio protocols and received timely sign offs from all relevant Ohio Department and agency attorneys. When the Administration changed so did its interpretation of the program’s legality.
“There is no statute of limitations for political retribution. This is a case of pure political payback,” he said. “The weaponization of ‘Special Prosecutors’ to inflict political paybacks happens everyday. Most of these prosecutions have little to do with the Pursuit of Justice.”
Michael Perik has donated more than $105,000 to political candidates over the years, mostly to Democrats, according to the state Board of Elections. He also has donated $24,000 for “party building” to the Rhode Island Democratic State Committee.
Foulkes campaign spokesperson Angelika Pellegrino said Foulkes will donate the $2,000 in contributions she received in 2021 and 2022 from Michael Perik to the Community College of Rhode Island’s Book Award Scholarship.
The Periks live in Jamestown, in a home assessed at $6.3 million that has been used as a venue for fund-raisers.
The indictment does not spell out any ties Perik has to Ohio beyond his work.
Arriving in the final weeks of campaign season, the charges against Perik quickly sparked calls for Beretta-Perik’s resignation from both sides of the aisle. Foulkes thanked Beretta-Perik for her service but called the allegations “serious and concerning,” while Guckian said the matter was “an enormous scandal, and the Democratic Party cannot pretend it’s business as usual.”
“We are talking about more than $20 million allegedly taken from taxpayers, students, and educational programs intended to help those who need assistance the most,” Rhode Island Republican Party Chairman Allyn Meyers said. “If proven, this represents a staggering betrayal of public.”
Ken Block, an independent candidate for Rhode Island governor who is second in the polls, said, “I am going to leave it to the Democrats to sort out their own mess there.”
“I will let the indictment speak for itself,” Block said. “If the allegations are true, that is a terrible thing.”
After Beretta-Perik stepped down, House Speaker Christopher R. Blazejewski, a Providence Democrat, and Senate President Valarie A. Lawson, an East Providence Democrat, thanked her for her “strong leadership and dedication to the Rhode Island Democratic Party over the last four years.”
“She made history as the first woman to be elected as chair of the party, and her resignation should not take away from the integrity and professionalism she always applied to her work on behalf of Rhode Island Democrats,” they said in a statement.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv. Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com. Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.