Pa. woman sentenced to 3 months in prison for putting exchange students in filthy homes

Woman sentenced to 3 mos. in Pa. exchange scandal

SCRANTON, Pa. — A northeastern Pennsylvania woman was sentenced Tuesday to three months in prison for placing foreign exchange students in filthy homes in a case that exposed problems with federal oversight of the nation’s exchange programs.

Edna Burgette, 70, was sentenced Monday in Lackawanna County Court after pleading guilty in February to three misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of children.

“I tried my best,” Burgette told Judge Michael J. Barrasse. “I couldn’t keep up.”

Burgette was fired from her job with the San Francisco-based Aspect Foundation last May after allegations surfaced that students were malnourished and living in homes whose floors were covered with dog feces.

Defense attorney Christopher Osborne had sought a sentence of house arrest, citing his client’s age and poor health. That request was denied.

“I think the job got the best of her,” Osborne said. “It was an unfortunate situation she got herself into.”

Her husband, the Rev. Elmer Smith, said outside the courtroom he did not believe his wife had done anything wrong.

“I think it was a mountain made out of a mole hill,” he said. “She took them (the children) on vacation, even to church.”

But Judge Barrasse ordered Burgette to Lackawanna County Prison, saying the “children were endangered over a long period of time in horrendous conditions.”

Burgette still awaits sentencing on federal charges that she collected $2,900 for student placements based on fraudulent paperwork.

In the wake of the scandal, the State Department’s internal watchdog found that federal officials weren’t doing enough to ensure exchange students’ well-being, leaving the task to the sponsoring organizations themselves.

The department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs acknowledged “serious problems” with monitoring and oversight of exchange students, which total roughly 30,000 per school year. It responded by adding staff, establishing a separate unit to conduct site visits, e-mailing students to ask about how their experiences were going and setting up a database to track problems.

Information from: The Times-Tribune, thetimes-tribune.com/