When it was announced that Tieqiang Ding, a seemingly wealthy and well-educated Chinese businessman, had finalized the purchase of Putnam Science Academy (PSA) in October 2015, it was seen as a triumph for the small town. Before he purchased the private high school, its prior owner, Turkish-American educator Omer Kizilcik, had announced they were running out of money and would likely have to close.

“Putnam Science Academy is my school as president, but it’s very, very important that it is our school,” Ding said in 2015. “I want Putnam Science Academy to belong to the town of Putnam, to the community. It belongs to our faculty, to our students. I am only one person on the team.”

PSA is known for its basketball program, which has won four national prep school championships in the past six years and has produced several Division 1 basketball players, one of whom, Hamidou Diallo, even had a short stint in the NBA. Upon Ding’s purchase of the school, he announced several lofty expansion plans and has since purchased numerous properties around Putnam to bring them into reality. 

He has turned the small, all-boys school into a coed school, significantly increased its student population, and appeared successful at raising the capital necessary to continue PSA’s transformation.

Despite appearances, however, not all is as it seems.

On June 24 of this year, D&M Group, an LLC Ding opened to purchase and manage PSA, was ordered by a Massachusetts court to pay a Boston-based private education company, RaiseCrest Education Inc., approximately $6.54 million for failure to pay back a loan. 

On Oct. 8 it was announced that PSA has five judgment liens placed against its properties, totaling that $6.54 million, plus 8% annual interest. These liens, combined with others placed on PSA, put the school in over $7 million worth of debt, with that number likely to climb as interest accrues. In 2022, PSA was ordered to pay nearly $900,000 in back taxes to the town and special utilities districts.

The financial woes of the school do not end there, however. Nor are they accidental, argues Randy Zhang, a man who sued Ding in October 2019 for allegedly defrauding him of $200,000.

Zhang, who spoke with Inside Investigator, said he is only one of many victims. Another who spoke with Inside Investigator, a former employee of Ding’s who wished to remain anonymous and will be referred to as Patrick, claims to have been defrauded out of $153,000.

Ding and his wife, Julia Fang, have been accused of targeting a growing number of Chinese and Chinese American investors, using the school as a means to defraud them, and embezzling school funds to line their own pockets.

“He’s evil,” said Patrick. “For American people, they are very respectful, very nice. For the Chinese, it’s another story, they’re totally different.”

When Ding and Fang were interviewed, however, they claimed the only crime they’re guilty of is prioritizing their students’ needs over their investors, some of whom they believe are intent on destroying them.

“People try to make trouble, try to damage the people who are doing a lot, whether they’re jealous or whatever,” said Ding.

Through a combination of conversations with on- and off-the-record sources — some of whom worked under Ding at PSA and others, such as Zhang, who were allegedly defrauded by Ding — as well as through the procurement of numerous court documents, public records and private communications, Inside Investigator has found evidence that Ding is not the Yale-educated doctor with a passion for education that he has claimed to be.

These sources insist that he is neither a certified doctor, nor the rightful sole owner of PSA, but is instead a career conman with a growing list of financial and legal troubles.

D&M Group, the LLC Ding used to purchase PSA, stands for two names in a business partnership that was formed between Tieqiang Ding and a wealthy Chinese businesswoman, who asked to remain anonymous and will be referred to as Mary.

Mary claims she first encountered Ding in 2015 over WeChat, a Chinese-owned social media app similar to Facebook or WhatsApp. The two quickly became friends, and when Mary expressed interest in moving to the United States to further her daughter’s education, Ding welcomed Mary and her daughter into his family’s home in Woodbridge while she got on her feet.

Mary and her daughter stayed with Ding and Fang and their two daughters for several months while working to purchase a house of her own. Mary said that Ding approached her about the potential to purchase PSA and claimed that with his prior experience in education and passion for children – combined with her investment – the school could be a fruitful business opportunity for her.

Mary agreed, and on June 11, 2015, D&M Group was notarized by the Connecticut Secretary of State’s Office. Over the next several months, Mary raised around $4.5 million, placing the funds into a joint bank account for PSA’s purchase and subsequent investment. A few weeks after PSA’s purchase was finalized on Oct. 25, 2015, Mary said she discovered that she was locked out of the joint bank account and subsequently removed as co-manager of D&M Group, both of which she says were done without her approval.

Throughout 2016, Mary said that she pestered Ding with requests for financial clarification and to renew her authority, to no avail. Only after she threatened to bring suit did he agree to return her title as co-manager of the LLC, but he allegedly went behind her back again in 2017 to remove her authorization. 

“I think he needs to be really punished, because he’s brought so many disasters to so many families,” said Mary. “He did not put in any money, I put in all the money, and then he kicked me out.”

Mary, who was hesitant to share her story, simply said that she hasn’t taken legal action because she wants to put the past behind her and focus on her current and future business endeavors.

“I want to put things behind me,” said Mary. “His behavior is exactly as I said, but I have no time to fight over a small loss. For me I must focus on good energy, I can treat it as a donation for education because that’s what I love.” 

As Mary herself later discovered, Ding’s questionable business practices long precede his ownership of PSA. Digging through court records reveals a past checkered with allegations of wage theft, domestic violence and unpaid debts.

On January 4, 2007, Ding’s wife Julia Fang filed an ex-parte restraining order against Ding. It barred Ding from contacting Fang, coming within 100 yards of her, entering her place of employment, or their children’s school and daycare. It also awarded Fang temporary custody of the couple’s two children, Megan and Grace, who were 4 and 2 respectively at the time.

In Fang’s write-up in the restraining order paperwork, she accuses Ding of attempting to choke her during an argument a few weeks prior. Later that same week, Fang said that Ding, “hit me with his fist on my face and body,” and that his beating left bruises. “He also dragged me in kitchen. He broke all the phones in the home to prevent me to call help [sic].”

Fang wrote that on Oct. 2, five days before the order was filed, Ding called her at work and asked her to come home so that they could talk. 

“He said he could not do anything, could not stand the situation like this (we are separated),” read Fang’s account of events. “He call me few times; told me I have to go home to talk otherwise I would regret.”

This is not the only domestic incident that has been recorded between the couple. As recently as August 2022, Ding was arrested and released on a $1,500 non-surety bond for a domestic incident that occurred at PSA between Ding and Fang with one of his daughters present. According to court documents, Fang filed for a divorce in 2023, though it was later dropped.

Despite the two’s rocky marriage, Fang remains PSA’s CFO, and several sources have claimed that her role behind the scenes has increased significantly since the departure of Headmaster and Head of Finances, Kevin and Patricia Wells, in 2018.

Regarding Ding’s financial history, court documents also substantiate a pattern of allegedly fraudulent behavior and unpaid debts going back over ten years. On July 9, 2012, Ding was sued by Midland Funding LLC, a debt collections agency, for an unpaid debt of $2,616.34. In 2019, Midland filed an application to garnish his wages, which was granted by the court on Jan. 7, 2020. He was also sued on March 21, 2012 by Cavalry SPV, another debt collections agency, for an unknown sum.

In 2010, Ding was sued by an employee, Arif Mehmood, for failing to properly pay him. Mehmood accused Ding of violating overtime laws and sought double his unpaid wages and reasonable attorney’s fees. Mehmood was an employee at a Subway restaurant, one of two Ding had franchised at the time. Mehmood began working for Ding on Feb. 17, 2008, at an agreed wage of $9 an hour. The suit alleged that Mehmood, “regularly worked in excess of forty hours each week,” and he was estimated to have worked 62 hours a week on average. 

In May 2008, Ding allegedly offered Mehmood a deal; Ding would hold onto the wages that Mehmood had earned from working overtime and would set them aside until Mehmood had made enough to buy Ding out of the Subway he was working at. Mehmood accepted Ding’s offer and was paid only for the first 40 hours he worked each week for approximately a year. 

About a year later, Ding told Mehmood “that in order to further assist him,” he would only pay Mehmood for the first 30 hours that he worked each week and would set aside the excess wages. 

Mehmood accepted this offer again. He continued working for Ding, being paid only for the first 30 hours he worked each week, until around April 2010. At that time, Mehmood told Ding that he was no longer interested in buying out Ding’s franchise, and asked Ding for the money he had supposedly been setting aside for him. Ding then told Mehmood that he didn’t have his money, and that “various personal obligations” prevented him from being able to pay Mehmood. He allegedly refused to pay Mehmood any of the regular or overtime wages he earned from May 2008 until April 2010, which Mehmood estimated to be worth over $33,000. Mehmood later decided to drop the suit, filing a voluntary dismissal on May 6, 2011.

Ding’s track record is conveniently left out of any life story he has provided to PSA faculty, parents, students, or those from whom he has sought investment. Sources allegedly defrauded by Ding have shared with Inside Investigator the backstory he gave them, as well as the one he shares with potential investors via PSA’s promotional materials published in various WeChat groups.

According to these sources, Ding has marketed himself as an established educator and Yale educated doctor who earned an MD in Pediatrics. Mary said that she later discovered Ding’s only experience in education prior to PSA’s purchase was running a short-lived, Chinese language weekend supplemental school. As far as his doctorate, and medical certifications, Zhang provided Inside Investigator with an email between him and Yale’s admissions that show they found no record of him having attained a PhD.

Inside Investigator made its own inquiry to the Yale School of Medicine’s Admissions Department but was denied on the basis that the release of documentation required the subject of any inquiries to sign off. Despite this setback, a source affiliated with Yale confirmed that searching for Ding in Yale’s Alumni Database yields no results. 

Furthermore, there are no pediatricians or general practitioners, certified by either the American Board of Pediatrics or the American Board of Medical Specialties, by the name of Tieqiang Ding in the state of Connecticut. Inside Investigator also used the alternate spellings of Tiegang Ding, Tiegiang Ding, and Tchiang Ding, for this inquiry and others, all of which yielded no results.

Zhang provided Inside Investigator with copies of Ding’s immigration papers, which show Ding having earned a bachelor’s degree in medicine and a master’s degree in public health at the West China University of Medical Sciences. For Ding to be a practicing doctor in the United States, however, he would still need to attain a medical degree and complete a residency. 

“He claims he’s a doctor, that means he got his PhD in Medicine from Yale,” said Zhang. “I don’t think he has a doctorate degree, or certification.”

Zhang believes that Ding used the credentials of his older brother, Tiegang Ding, a radiologist located in the Boston area, to trick researchers into writing him a letter of recommendation when applying for citizenship. Ding and Fang confirmed in their interview with Inside Investigator that Ding has a brother who lives in Boston.

Inside Investigator contacted two of the researchers who wrote Ding letters of recommendation, Frank Gasparro and Spyros Atavanis-Tsakonas, both of whom said they couldn’t remember enough of that period or of Ding to confirm or deny whether it was him or his brother who they had worked with at Yale. 

Inside Investigator contacted another researcher who co-authored studies with a Tie-Gang Ding at Yale, Richard Edelson. Edelson said that he could not determine from recent photos of the two which one was the one that he worked with, but was certain he was named Tiegang.

“I do recall Tiegang Ding as a pleasant, bright and industrious laboratory worker and never met his brother,” said Edelson. “Once Tiegang left the laboratory in the mid 90’s we lost touch.  I am certain that only Tiegang worked with me.”

Randy Zhang claims to have been defrauded of the $200,000 he invested in D&M Group. Zhang now works as a software developer for a telecommunications company and owns an educational agency, tutoring Chinese students and connecting them with schools in the United States, which he started in 2012.

Zhang said he first connected with Ding through one of his agency clients’ parents. A Beijing-based investor, she frequently traveled to the United States on business, and around March 2016, she referred Zhang to Ding and Julia.

“When I talked to her, she told me she knew a couple that were very nice, they have a lot of educational resources,” said Zhang. “She connected me to the couple on WeChat.”

Zhang said that Ding and Fang used various WeChat Groups to promote PSA to Chinese parents and procure investments. Zhang said there were roughly 100 people in the group, and Fang was collecting information from interested parties to meet with them one-on-one.

“I talked to Julia privately, first because I tried to host an internet seminar, and I asked if I was able to do this, and she said ‘Yeah, you’re welcome to share your information,’” recalled Zhang. “I asked ‘Who’s your husband?’ She said he owned two private schools; one is PSA the other is the [St.] Joseph School.”

St. Joseph School in Massachusetts formerly employed PSA headmaster Don Cushing from 2008 to 2015 but has never been owned by either Ding or Fang. 

Zhang said that Fang claimed Ding held a PhD from Yale and was a doctor of pediatrics and understood education from a philosophical standpoint. She also claimed that Ding had a variety of connections and strong relationships with various U.S. government offices and agencies, all of which, Zhang now says, is false. What really piqued Zhang’s interest, however, was Fang’s claim that PSA had, “the best basketball program in the United States at the high school level.” 

Examples of articles sent to interested parents/prospective investors over WeChat in which Ding is described as Yale-educated, with an MD in pediatric growth and development.

Zhang had a nephew who lived in the US at the time, who was 6-foot-3 and interested in playing basketball. In early December 2016, Zhang took a visit to PSA. During the visit, Ding and Fang showed Zhang around campus and introduced him to faculty members, including Cushing, who served as vice principal at the time, and Tom Espinosa, PSA’s long-time head basketball coach who still currently works for the school.

“They took me to this local club, I think the YMCA, and they showed me there’s a small thing that said the Ding family donated,” said Zhang. “They told me that they’re very enthusiastic about charity, and community service, so they donated. They told me [they had] big dreams about their school model.”

Zhang said that Ding and Fang took him on a two-hour drive to Springfield, MA, in a Land Rover, to watch PSA’s basketball team play a game. He said the two introduced him to more faculty members, showed him around the city, and treated him “like a good friend, or family,” while filling him in on their ownership of the school. Zhang said that he was impressed by the program, Ding and Fang, and the school overall. 

“I saw it was a good program, fitting for my nephew,” said Zhang. “Another thing is, they showed me around the campus, and they had a main building and a building next to it with some dorms. They told me they have a dream, they are going to acquire St. Mary’s school, it is a religious church, a very big building with over 200 rooms or something.”

Zhang said that Ding planned to use the building to accommodate more international students, and he was hoping to incorporate an English program for international students and another program for foreign investors, an EB-5 program. 

“They also mentioned they have a program for immigration,” said Zhang. “He mentioned they have this program and that they are also open to other investors, and he also said that if I know other people, they are open to taking investment from them as well.”

According to Zhang, Ding said foreign nationals must invest $1 million into the school to be eligible for citizenship, but that Ding would not be able to recoup any returns to investors until their citizenship status is recognized by the US government. Essentially, it would give Ding an easy way to sell investment to foreign nationals desperate to obtain citizenship. He could promise them citizenship status without having to give investors their promised returns when their citizenship status was inevitably not approved.

In addition to Ding’s plans for physical expansion, he also told Zhang of his lofty plans to create a program that would prepare international students to be teachers and a program to use PSA’s facilities as a foster home for orphans. 

Zhang said that the two sold him a bogus story surrounding Ding’s acquisition of the school during the car ride to Springfield. Zhang said that the two told him that when Ding was looking into the purchase of PSA, that it was a “hot deal,” with lots of competitive bids.

“Because of the reputation of Ding, his education at Yale and his relationship with China, they were trusted – they were the only ones qualified, that’s what she [Julia] told me,” recalled Zhang.

Zhang also recounted what the pair told him when he asked what the M in D&M Group stood for.

“Because the school is called D&M, I asked him what happened to the M,” said Zhang. “He told me M wasn’t on the same page and didn’t understand education, so he kicked him or her out, he purchased her share and kicked her out. He didn’t mention the name of M, he just mentioned the partner [and that] he purchased their share and kicked them out.”

Zhang said that the two made a lasting impression on him during the visit. 

“They seemed like very nice people, they had a big dream,” said Zhang. “Like they were really onto something and wanted to help young kids with their success.”

“That gave me the impression that he earned money as a doctor, that he might have owned his own clinic,” said Zhang. “As a doctor, he worked to help a lot of young kids, and he wanted to use education to change Chinese students and bring some students to the NBA [through] the basketball program. That made me excited.”

After the visit, Zhang said that he was interested in helping Ding achieve his “big dreams.” This was when Ding told Zhang he could be a shareholder in the school. Zhang said he’d be interested.

Ding told Zhang he needed to raise extra funds to help with his purchase of the St. Mary’s School, a purchase that was made in 2021. Zhang said Ding tried to downplay the monetary aspect of his requests for assistance and treated Zhang as though he would be a valued member of PSA’s team.

“He said, very nicely, ‘’We don’t care too much about your money, we cherish you as a person,’” recalled Zhang. “‘We want you onboard the team because we think you have the enthusiasm, the experience, and the nice personal connections.’”

Zhang said that he was not provided much in the way of financial records before he was rushed by Ding into investing. He recalled Ding telling him that the school was valued anywhere from $12 to $18 million, but said that said he was only provided surface-level financial information. Zhang said that upon asking for more in-depth documentation, Ding told him that he was too busy, and then began making desperate pleas for Zhang to invest. This is reflected in a translated transcript of their chat provided by Zhang.

Ding told Zhang that he would soon be meeting with investors from Boston who belonged to a large Chinese education company that was interested in buying Ding out. He told Zhang that if he did not help raise the necessary funds to keep PSA running, the school would have to be sold, and Zhang would miss out on any opportunity to make money.

“He used it as something to push you, to show if you don’t take this timeframe, you will have lost the opportunity,” said Zhang. “He pushed me a lot.”

Zhang said Ding wanted him to invest $500,000. Hesitant, Zhang transferred $200,000 in total, with his first few payments, totaling $100,000, being made in January and February of 2017. 

He then met Ding in person in March 2017 to transfer another $100,000. Zhang said at that time, that he asked Ding for their financial agreement to be notarized, which Ding verbally assured Zhang he had done. Ding did not show Zhang a copy of the notarized agreement, however, and Zhang later found out that he never signed it. 

Zhang, as well as others Inside Investigator spoke with, said that Ding took their investments in the form of promissory notes. Promissory notes are a financial instrument similar to bonds; essentially, the issuer agrees to receive a certain amount of money from a lender, who in turn receives their money back, often plus interest, at an agreed-upon date. Zhang said that the first draft of the agreement that Ding proposed did not offer indemnification of any losses, but that Zhang’s lawyer noticed and asked for further protection.

Zhang says Ding complied but then pressured him into sending him money before refusing to sign the agreement, something Zhang said is a common tactic of Ding’s.

“That’s his common defrauding approach,” said Zhang. “They try to stay away from signing a real agreement with you.”

Ding instead told Zhang that since his payment had not yet gone through, he would not send over the notarized document. From then on, every time Zhang asked for a copy of the allegedly signed agreement, Ding would simply ignore him or stall, claiming that he was too busy. Zhang said that in October 2017, Ding finally told him that PSA was in dire financial straits and promised to pay him back as soon as the school could.

“From that day on, he just didn’t pick up the phone, doesn’t respond to my emails,” said Zhang. “If I pushed hard, he would threaten me and show attitude.” 

Zhang says Fang reached out to him at one point to say that Ding was usually even-keeled in his temper, but that Zhang should not “push harder” as Ding was very stressed over finances. She again assured Zhang that he would be repaid as soon as possible. Instead, they then went silent and removed Zhang from their WeChat group.

“Once you find something wrong, they remove you from their WeChat because they’re afraid you’ll say something bad about the school,” said Zhang. “They want to make sure you don’t connect with any other students, families or potential investors.”

Another alleged Chinese American victim was Patrick. Patrick worked as the principal of a Chinese school in New York and first met Ding in the fall of 2016. Patrick said he visited PSA that December to network with other predominantly Chinese-focused schools. The two discussed the potential for educational collaboration, exchanged phone numbers, and added one another on WeChat.

Patrick, who worked as an educational agent like Zhang, helped PSA institute its first successful three-week shadow program, essentially a short-term exchange program to give Chinese students a taste of America, in May 2017. Around that time, Patrick saw that Ding was looking to hire people for the school’s admissions department. Patrick contacted Ding, interested in the opportunity, and eventually met him at Westchester Mall, where Ding persuaded him to take the job. Patrick accepted the offer, believing, like Zhang, that his network with Chinese educators and schools would be an asset to PSA. He officially started the job on July 1, 2017.

By May 2017, before even starting his first official day of work, Patrick said he had already attracted 200 international students to take campus visits. He replicated this success in the summer as well.

It was around that time that Ding first asked Patrick for money. He recalled Ding pleading his case, admitting that he had planned poorly and that PSA was short the money it needed to continue normal operations. Patrick thought him to be sincere, and he lent Ding $30,000. Patrick said that he thought at that time that Ding “worked very hard.”

“They convinced me that they were borrowing money at the very beginning, not like an investment,” said Patrick. “Just borrowing money for hard times, because they could not afford money to pay employees at that time.”

This was the first of several times that Ding asked Patrick for money. Time after time, Patrick agreed to help Ding cover payroll, offering six payments of varying amounts. 

Patrick showed Inside Investigator copies of some of the promissory notes; $30,000 paid out to Ding on June 22, 2017; $50,000 on September 8; $20,000 on November 3, and $15,000 on December 1. In addition, Patrick said he made two more payments, one on June 29 and another on October 6, 2017. In total, he lent Ding $153,000, with agreed-upon annual interest rates of 9.6% to 12% on each payment.

Patrick says he came to realize Ding was borrowing money from others, including Zhang. Zhang reached out to Patrick to try and reclaim some of the money he invested, and Patrick said he tried to recoup pieces of it at a time. He eventually spoke with Ding, and realized that his primary focus was raising money, not running the school.

“Little by little I realized, he focused on trying to attract other people to invest in him,” said Patrick. “I was sure he would not prepare to return the money back. When I realized that, I stopped lending money to him.”

Patrick said that when Ding failed to return the monthly interest on his investments, he knew for sure he was being scammed. He recalled walking into Ding’s office one day in December 2017, with a note that showed how much he had lent Ding and how much interest Ding owed him.

“He took it, looked at it, and then put it upside down on his desk,” said Patrick. “So that’s when I realized, the nightmare starts.”

After badgering Ding and Fang, he was able to recoup some of his money back. He said that Ding returned him a principal of $30,000, plus $4,500 in interest, in Sept. 2018. After resigning in Feb. 2019, Patrick said he was able to recover an additional $20,000 in repayment, without interest, in Feb. 2020. He recovered another $40,000 in principle in Aug. 2020 by “overwhelming” Ding with messages. 

Regarding Patrick’s resignation, he said that the final straw was when Fang entered his office in a fit of rage after he told one of his clients about PSA’s shoddy finances. She threatened him, saying that he would never see his money back if he were to ever tell another client the truth about PSA.

“On that day, I felt very, very uncomfortable because she threatened me,” said Patrick. “She stepped in my office and shut the door heavily and threatened me. That day I had left the school.”

Patrick said he regrets not calling the police that day, but that he didn’t do so because he was in shock. He said that Ding later tried to brush it off as a misunderstanding, but he told him that he understood perfectly. He resigned, told his wife, and said that she supported his decision.

“So far, the family has supported me, we support each other,” said Patrick. “But I don’t think this couple, [Fang and Ding] support each other. They are not good people.”

Despite Patrick’s success in sales for an Italian menswear company after leaving PSA, he has not fully shaken his experiences with Ding. He said that his experience with the two discouraged him from pursuing another job in education. 

“My wife doesn’t give me a hard time, but she sometimes asks me, ‘Oh, we should ask for the money back from Ding,’ but I cannot get the money back.” said Patrick. “You can feel the pressure. A couple times, I could not sleep the whole night.”

Patrick said that Ding and Fang had two faces, one for Americans and another for Chinese people. Patrick, who emigrated to the US from China in 2004, said that so many Chinese people trust Ding because they know so little about the United States, and see him as an established immigrant who was once in their shoes. 

“New immigrants, we come to this country, we have no clue,” said Patrick. “We have to build up our own experience, our own knowledge of this country.”

Patrick described the first few years as an immigrant as being a “struggle,” because of the language barrier and lack of familiarity. He said it’s hard enough for immigrants to get into America, but that it’s even harder to get on their feet when they do. To Patrick, the experience is akin to climbing up a tall ladder.

“We have to climb a ladder, up a high wall, step by step, and jump into America,” said Patrick. “Then, when we jump into America, it’s another deep hole. We have to forget all we know already and have to climb up again, and when we have the time, looking back, we realize we’re Americans.”

That’s why Chinese people, or Chinese-Americans who identify with the plight of those emigrating in pursuit of their dreams, make such a perfect group to con. Both Zhang and Patrick said that Ding’s fraudulent credentials made him seem legitimate and trustworthy. Patrick also explained that recent immigrants look up to people like Ding, who have established themselves in America and who appear to be accomplished.

“So, for immigrants, we look up to immigrants already here for a couple years, we admire them, and automatically trust them,” said Patrick. “They take advantage of that.”

Zhang said that the subsequent legal battle he had with Ding was exhausting for him. As a result of the money he lost, he has since had to take another loan out on his house. It has also increased tension with his family; he said he doesn’t have enough money to spend on his son, and that it has caused lots of fights with his wife. 

“My wife fights with me a lot,” said Zhang. “It’s really hard to save any money.”

In 2017, Zhang’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. He said he traveled back to China to be with her at the time and tried again to get money back from Ding and Fang to help pay for his mother’s treatment, to no avail.

“When your parents are sick, and you do not have the money to help, that’s really not a good feeling,” said Zhang. “I will never forgive those people. This is just one small family too: for the students that’s big, for the town that’s big.”

Zhang said that the experience has left him feeling disappointed with the country’s justice system.

“I’ve lost faith in the US Justice System,” said Zhang. “We talked to the US consul, we talked to the FBI, we talked to the mayor, but there hasn’t been much done. I’m not trying to blame; I don’t fully understand the legal system.”

Zhang thinks it’s possible that because the victims are primarily Chinese Americans and foreign citizens, it has been ranked as a lower priority for the investigating authorities, forcing him to turn to the media. He also said that he knows several victims who have lost millions but thinks that they are quiet either because they’re rich and are willing to take it on the nose, or because they’re scared to show how much money they have and where it may come from. He thinks it’s important to speak out, however, so that others don’t keep getting defrauded.

“I want to stop him,” said Zhang. “A lot of other victims are just silent, and they’re [Ding and Fang] continuing to cheat other people.”

Zhang worried for the future of PSA’s students. After a two-year legal battle, Zhang eventually came to a $170,000 settlement with Ding and Fang in 2021. Crystal Wang, her husband John, and Qiyuan Chen, three others allegedly defrauded by Ding, were awarded $390,000 in a separate suit. Zhang, who has closely cooperated with Wang, said that the settlement arranged for Ding and Fang to make monthly payments to the plaintiffs in each suit, but that as of February or March this year, all payments have ceased.

As a result, Zhang and the others were awarded judgment liens on PSA’s properties, and Zhang filed foreclosure suits this June. Zhang fears that Ding’s inability to pay back his and Wang’s debts, in addition to the $6.5 million liens placed on the school’s properties by RaiseCrest, could mean the school will be forced to shut down.

“If the school suddenly stopped in the middle of the semester, what would happen to those kids?” said Zhang. “When this school suddenly closes due to fraudulence, what will happen to those hundreds of students? No good.”

In pursuit of this story, Inside Investigator obtained testimony from those allegedly defrauded by Ding, and from former employees at PSA. Both sources agreed to share the experiences and insights they gathered from working closely with Ding on the condition of anonymity. 

The first source, Jack, worked at PSA for eleven years prior to Ding’s purchase of the school, and after a short-lived contractual dispute with Ding, continued to work under Ding as the contracts and facilities manager and head of business from 2016 until his termination, which occurred sometime in 2017-2018. The second source, Jill, briefly worked at PSA’s finance department in 2016, after Ding’s purchase of the school. She resigned after the IRS froze PSA’s accounts sometime in 2017-2018.

The two painted a damning picture of how Ding managed, or allegedly mismanaged, the school’s finances, admissions, staffing and expansion. At best, the two characterized him as ignorant of the proper procedures through which the school’s accounts, finances and payroll should be managed, despite his adamant and headstrong persistence that he did. 

At worst, the two characterized him as a malignant presence; one who knowingly defrauded investors, embezzled school funds, lied to faculty, parents, and investors, and lashed out in retaliation against any staff that attempted to hold him accountable. 

At first, however, Jack thought Ding would be the school’s savior.

“This guy came in, he painted a beautiful picture,” said Jack. “He said he had unlimited financial resources and friends basically were showering him with whatever he needed in order to make PSA the best private school in the country. I thought originally, ‘Oh my goodness, we hit paydirt; things are going to continue as they are, business as usual just with more money.’”

Jack said that his perception of Ding began to change when he started to accompany Ding on several business trips to China.

“When I started going to China with him, I’d see the lies, and I’d go, ‘Wait a minute, something’s not adding up here,” said Jack.

The purpose of these trips was to attract foreign investment. Jack said that Ding frequently propped him up to potential investors as something more than he was; instead of a high school and low-level college basketball referee, who himself had never graduated college, Jack says he was made out to be a highly educated, professional basketball referee, who trained the best referees in the country.

“When he said this, I was like ‘What the hell is going on with this guy?,’” said Jack. “What is he saying?”

Jack said that he never validated the inflated credentials that Ding ascribed to him to any Chinese businessmen who asked about them. He also said that his negative experiences accompanying Ding in China reached a head when it became apparent that one wealthy Beijing businesswoman was attracted to him. Jack, who was engaged at the time, pleaded with Ding to communicate his lack of interest and discomfort to the woman, who made increasingly bold and unreciprocated passes on him. Instead of notifying her of Jack’s lack of interest, Ding instead tried to leverage her attraction to him to guarantee her investment.

“I told Ding to tell her to stop, leave me alone,” said Jack. “Don’t touch me, I don’t want anyone touching my arms, my neck, my back, my shoulders, stop! And he was persistent that I take one for the team.” Jack says this was the end of his trust in Ding.

When asked about the finances of PSA, both Jack and Jill painted a picture of total disarray.

“We owed money everywhere,” said Jack. “The money would come in the front door and it was immediately right out the back.”

Both said that they had to partake in a weekly race with Ding every time money was deposited into the school’s account to ensure that there was enough to pay the school’s employees and pay off its utility bills, insurance policies, and other expenses.

“Once we caught on that he was taking the money out, we started paying the bills right away,” said Jack. “We’d go to the bank, we’d cashier’s check stuff, because that way he couldn’t take the money out, it was already accounted for.”

Jack said he would see anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 leave the school’s account each week. He said that when asked where the money was going, Ding would often chalk up the missing money as going towards his Collegiate Academy, a small parent-led, weekends-only study group. Jack called it a “BS little study group” and was convinced that Ding only formed it to hide money.

Both said that they frequently saw bank transfers from the school’s Putnam Savings Bank account to Ding’s personal Bank of America account. Jack went as far as to say that Ding even asked him to use school funds to make tuition payments for Ding’s daughters.

“He was making Jill and I send payments for his personal vehicle, for his kids’ tuition, from the school account,” said Jack. “I’m like, you know you can’t do that, you can’t pay for your kids, that’s got to come out of your personal account!”

In addition to Ding’s alleged embezzlement, both also found the school’s admissions pricing as a reason for the school’s financial woes. Jack said that the cost of staffing the school’s esteemed basketball program could not be supported by the low cost of admissions for American students, which Zhang estimated was around $3,000 a year, and said that it was “an understatement” to consider the school as operating at a significant loss.

Jack said that, during his tenure, international students would pay anywhere from $50-$55,000 a year in tuition, and that the only other significant source of admissions revenue came from basketball players recruited to the school’s B and C-league teams, who would pay anywhere from $20-$25,000 a year. He said he remembered crunching the numbers while working there and estimated that the school would require $2.6 million to break even, but that it only received $1.1 million that year.

Jack said that Ding saw admitting international students as a way of extracting the most money, while admission of American students for cheap would work to inflate the school’s numbers to make it look more legitimate. Jill recalled him coming up with different admissions price points depending on the students’ countries of origin.

“He was like, ‘Well if they’re coming from here, we’ll charge them this, but if they’re coming from there, we’ll charge them this,’” said Jill.

Jack said that he and head basketball coach, Tom Espinosa, also witnessed Ding misrepresent the school as a publicly traded company to potential investors.

“We’re sitting at this meeting on a Saturday morning with three investors, and he’s telling them, basically, you’d be buying shares,” recounted Jack. “Tom [Espinosa] and I could see him, and we were like, ‘Wait, we’re not a tradable company, right? There’s no shares; what is he doing?”

Jill said that Ding also thought himself to be exempt from paying taxes. She said he frequently told her that the school was a non-profit entity, making it exempt from property tax, even though the school hadn’t filed any of the proper documentation.

“The payroll taxes, the property taxes, I told him you have to pay those, he said ‘Oh no, no I don’t,” said Jill. “I went to Jack like, ‘Look, you need to get the money for these because the IRS is coming after us if we don’t pay them.’ I went round and round and round with him [Ding] and I’m like ‘You cannot, not pay your taxes!”

After Jack tried to press the importance of paying taxes to an uninterested Ding, he told Jill that the two of them had tried and that the matter was out of their hands. Jill said at that point, the two were done trying to get through to Ding.

“Every month, Jack and I would pull out the past-due tax bills and put them on his desk and he just shoved them aside,” said Jill. “I’m like, okay, fine, whatever, I warned you. I’ve asked, I’ve done everything I could, but you’re not willing to listen, so when the IRS comes after us then I can say I told you so, and they did.”

Neither remembers the exact date the IRS eventually came knocking, but both remember the day’s events in vivid detail. Jack recalled it being a Friday when a representative he knew from Putnam Savings Bank had approached him in school. The representative told him that the IRS had frozen the school’s account. Jack immediately marched into Ding’s office, got him in a room with the bank rep, and had him fill Ding in.

“He said, ‘Dr. Ding, your bank account has been seized by the IRS,’” said Jack. “[Ding] looks at me and says, ‘Why, Jack? What is going on?’ I said, ‘You tell me!’”

Jack set a meeting between himself, Espinosa, and headmaster Cushing, who all agreed to forgo their checks for the week to have enough money to pay the rest of the faculty. Ultimately, Jack said it wasn’t necessary, however, as Ding sent someone to raise additional money from Chinese American investors. The employee eventually returned with an additional $60,000, though Jack noted that it came with exorbitant interest, which he knew Ding would likely never be able to pay off.

In the meantime, Ding sent Jack and Jill to withdraw $46,000 from Ding’s personal account to pay the staff. Jack recalled being handed “two big, brown bags full of cash,” which he took to his office and used to pay out employees’ checks. Upon returning with the money, Jack said that Ding gave the task of informing the rest of the faculty about the financial fiasco to him.

“Please, don’t misinterpret this as arrogance, but he’s taking my wisdom, my street smarts, my business smarts and my looks as a means to bullshit the employees, to make them feel like there isn’t a problem,” said Jack. “I was never going to do that.”

Jack assembled all the school’s employees and told them flat out that the school’s bank accounts had been seized by the IRS, and that everyone would need to sign over their checks to be paid in cash.

Both Jack and Jill said that the incident marked the end of the line for them. Jack got into one last argument with Ding over both his finances, and an incident in which he reportedly witnessed Ding berating members of the maintenance team, which led to Ding demoting him as the school’s head of business, and him subsequently resigning. Jill said that she immediately resigned and didn’t look back.

“That was it, I was done,” said Jill. “I am not going week by week to go, ‘Oh geez, am I going to get paid this week? Am I not going to get paid this week?’”

Jack and Jill were not the only ones to have left the school under Ding’s reign at PSA. Both said that the school, perhaps predictably, has been marred by a revolving door of staff since their departure. Jack called it a “circus,” and said that at the end of last school year, May of this year, approximately 50% of the school’s staff quit.

Jack did not mince words when sharing his thoughts of Ding.

“He’s a monster,” said Jack. “He’s really good at manipulating, so he’s able to go out and he just finds new people to lie to, to steal from, to cheat, and he uses people in a way I’ve never seen, and he hides behind them.”

Jill said that she was incredulous at his ability to lie his way out of financial problems and was amazed that the school was still running.

“I just felt like he was a good liar,” said Jill. “Everybody in China believed him.”

When asked for their side of the story, Ding and Fang invited Inside Investigator to take a tour of the school. 

Starting in the school’s primary building at 18 Maple, the first thing one sees when they enter is an impressive array of athletic awards. Fang began the tour by showcasing the school’s pride and joy, the men’s basketball team. In attendance at a boys’ practice were head coach Tom Espinosa, Academic Dean and Assistant Headmaster Kevin Donovan, and Ding himself.

“I take care of all these boys if they have an injury or something like that, because I have a medical background, so you can see I watch them,” explained Ding as we walked out of the gymnasium. 

Fang led the first leg of the tour, showcasing the football film room, the athletic weight room, and various offices, classrooms and corridors while Ding briefly attended to an errand. After rejoining, Ding and Fang happily, yet slightly uneasily, led their way through the school, highlighting various renovations it has undergone since they purchased it. The two also showcased their familiarity with the students, greeting each one with a smile and a wave, knowing many of them on a first-name basis. Ding said that this year, the students came from 32 countries. One classroom’s chalkboard showed how to say ‘hello’ in various languages.

“You can see we encourage the multinational [aspect],” said Ding. 

The tour showcased not only the entirety of 18 Maple, which Ding described as the STEM building, but the entirety of PSA’s campus, which spans several properties located across the town of Putnam. Down the street from PSA’s main office and STEM building was another brick building that they explained would someday be used as dorms but is still in need of renovation. Across the street from these prospective dorms was a house in which the school’s doctor lives, explained Ding.

Taking a drive around town, they showcased the Holy Spirit school, a beautiful brick-walled, gable-roofed building overlooking the Quinebaug River which was sold to PSA in 2019. Previously, the building belonged to the Daughters of the Holy Spirit where it was used as the organization’s provincial home since 1919. In that capacity, it housed nuns, many of whom served as teachers at Putnam’s St. Mary’s School. Fang said the church sold the Holy Spirit home to them for a “very low price” and gave them a loan. According to the Hartford Courant, the sale was finalized for $3 million.

“They had a condition, they said we have to keep the school open,” said Fang. “So that’s our mission, we have to keep the school open.”

The two then showcased what used to be the former St. Mary’s School, which they purchased for $550,000. Ding said they essentially “purchased it by accident.” He said that the two were forced to search for additional property to house their students during COVID as a result of one-person-per-room mandates and that while they originally looked into renting additional temporary housing, buying St. Mary’s ended up being cheaper.

Looking at the property, it’s easy to see why. St. Mary’s, located on Marshall Street, consists of three rundown brick buildings, two of which are connected to one another while another is separated by a vacant parking lot, all of which are in visible need of renovation. Fang said they planned for one to be used as a liberal arts building, while another would be used for the additional dormitories, but that the state of the buildings has thus far prevented those visions from becoming reality. Chief among the buildings’ needs is the installment of a new sprinkler system and working heat. Perhaps the most surprising fact the two revealed about the building was that the two of them currently live in it.

“I want to show you where we live,” said Ding. “I don’t mind showing you.”

The two showcased their little corner of the otherwise large former Catholic school. Spread among four rooms separated by a hallway were their belongings. One room served as Ding and Fang’s bedroom. Another served as the bedroom of one of their two daughters who is currently attending PSA, though Ding admitted that his daughter preferred to stay in the dorms. Split across the two remaining rooms was a kitchen and a storage area for their belongings. Ding noted that they did not have a stove, though there was a hotplate and microwave. Due to the lack of working heat, they use space heaters to stay warm.

“We had a home, and Dr. Ding had some investment property as well, but he sold everything to put the money into the school,” said Fang. “We’re basically homeless, we basically have no savings or anything.”

Fang said the two have taken out all of their retirement to put towards the school, and that Ding sold their family home in Woodbridge and a few properties he owned in New Haven. Ding said he felt bad that he was not able to better provide for his wife and children, but Fang said he shouldn’t.

“But anyways, we work for the kids,” said Ding, who boasted that over the 8 years of his ownership of PSA they have sent over 130 students to Division 1 schools. “Everybody has to do something for this world, not only for themselves. That’s what I believe,” said Ding.

Throughout their tour, the two noted the various needs of each building and the expenses that each represented. They also highlighted the various ways in which they cut costs: instead of opting to replace a $10,000 stained glass window, they instead patched it. Instead of hiring tree cutters, Ding said he and his 15-year-old daughter worked to trim a tree hanging over one of the school’s dorms. Ding also took pride in sharing that he cared for and maintained all of the plants and flowers in the school’s various gardens around campus.

Ding said that he also has encouraged students to share in some of the school’s groundskeeping, such as leaf-raking, in hopes it would instill a sense of commitment and duty that they could take with them as adults.

“I try to make our kids, our students, do some work, for example helping the kitchen or cleaning the yard,” said Ding. “My idea is they are students right now, and tomorrow they may be somebody’s wife, somebody’s husband, and later they will be somebody’s parent. You need to know how to do stuff!”

The burden of financial strife is carried not only by Ding and Fang, but by the staff as well. Ding said that to make up for the school’s lack of money, “everybody wears three hats, maybe more.” All of the dorm’s residential advisors are athletic coaches, many coaches double as teachers, and assistant women’s basketball coach Marigona Bacilui even doubles as admissions staff. Ding said Bacilui was one of the first girls to graduate from PSA, and that she got a full scholarship to Quinnipiac. After graduation, she came back to work for her alma mater.

“When she came here, the first thing she said was ‘Dr. Ding, from right now I’m not your student, I’m your co-worker,” said Ding with a laugh.

After they finished giving their tour of PSA, both Ding and Fang agreed to sit down in a private conference room at their 72 Church St. campus to answer questions. A feeling of unease descended upon the room, and the smiles on their faces wavered as they sat down. This feeling remained throughout the two-hour interview, which at times escalated into audible tension, fierce disagreement between the two over what should be said or how much should be said, and debate over how questions should be answered.

Fang, who said that she had four years prior experience as a journalist in China, was generally well-composed and prepared for the interview. Ding’s prior charm, on the other hand, was often replaced by visible anxiety that occasionally erupted into frustration, caused either in response to the claims made by those whom he labeled “bad people,” or by Fang’s answers, which he deemed to be more revealing than the questions called for.

His attempts to periodically silence Fang would anger her; she would snap at him for being “disrespectful,” at times even asking him to leave, and the two would argue back and forth. Then, as sudden as the interruption to the interview came, it would cease, and they would again become silent and attentive while waiting for the next question to potentially reignite the cycle. Ding would occasionally leave his seat to pace in circles anxiously, and at one point left the room for a brief respite from it all.

Upon his return, he was clearly agitated, firing off curt answers to questions before apologizing and explaining that his anger was not aimed at Inside Investigator for asking questions, but at the “bad people” that peddled “false claims” in the first place.

“I’m upset, right now,” said Ding. “Why am I upset? Because I spend all my life, all my energy, my money, my family’s money, supporting the kids here, and then I get mistreated. I’m kind of nervous because they’ve damaged me a lot.”

“So, we made mistakes, definitely made mistakes,” said Fang. Ding quickly asked, “What kind of mistakes? I don’t think we made any mistakes.”

Fang laughed nervously, taking a moment to think. “I don’t think we; I don’t think we should have-”

“Trusted them,” interjected Ding. “Yes,” she affirmed.

Ding said that he was first made aware of PSA’s potential shuttering by a former board member of PSA under its previous ownership, who was a tenant of one of the houses he owned. Ding also said that somebody approached him, wanting to buy the property. Fang described this investor as a male friend of Ding’s, or “somebody he knew,” and said that he told Ding it would require $25 million to purchase the school and make the necessary upgrades to its facilities. Fang said that he invested the first few million, but that he later “regretted it.” The role of this investor seemingly mirrors that of Mary, who they did not acknowledge until later on in the interview.

“Somebody approached me and said they wanted to buy the property here,” said Ding. “I know this school was for sale, so I came in here and talked about that, and they asked me how much funds we can recover for this school, and I said $25 million.”

Ding then said that this investor said they could “maybe” provide $25 million but backed out upon realizing the condition of the school’s facilities.

“Investors promised us $25 million,” said Ding. “But when we purchased the school, after that, maybe a few months, they said, ‘Wow, it’s too hard,’ and then gave it up. So that put me in a bad situation.”

Ding said that he already felt as though he was in too deep, as he had already recruited 14 students to the school and had employed faculty members.

“I couldn’t give up,” said Ding. “So since then, I’ve worked like a dog.”

Ding said that by 2016, he knew the school was in a dire financial situation and looked to find “any resources to support the school.” He asked a prospective investor, whom he referred to only as Xia, to help him, but that she had no interest.

The two explained that Xia was initially interested in investing because she thought that an investment in it could make her eligible for an EB-5 visa. When asked if PSA had ever been recognized by US Customs as an EB-5 eligible investment opportunity, the two said that they had attempted to do so, but haven’t been able to, and said that no investors have been able to receive green cards as a result of their investment. Ding said that since Xia waived her financial backing, it was up to only him and Fang to manage the school.

Ding said he came to the United States on November 18, 1990. Fang said she came over on December 18, 1994. Ding said he came because he was offered a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale. He said he couldn’t remember how long he worked in the postdoctoral program, but thought he must have finished working there in 1996 or 1997.

Fang attempted to jog his memory, saying that she thought he worked at Yale for six or seven years before leaving. Ding said that after he finished, he worked for Bayer Pharmaceutical.

“So, you finished your post-doctoral and then you did some-,” said Fang.

“Science! I did some research science,” interjected Ding excitedly, as though he had seemingly just recalled it. “I operated in the monoclonal antibody facility.”

When asked how long he worked at Yale’s medical lab, Ding said that he was “very nervous,” because if he misremembered any dates or details, it might be used against him. He also did not want to talk about how the two met, citing privacy concerns. Fang thought it important to include, however, and said she met him while she was a graduate student, and while he was working at Bayer. She said she moved to the United States after graduating and that the two married in either 1999 or 2000. This, of course, was contradictory; if Ding was working at Bayer when the two met, and Fang was in school, he either had to have finished working at Yale prior to 1994, or she had to have emigrated later. Inside Investigator has since found research papers published by Yale that would indicate a T. Ding worked as a researcher as late as 1996.

Ding said that he is not registered to practice medicine here in the United States, but that he practiced pediatrics in China. He said, with conviction, that he never misrepresented himself as a practicing doctor in America, but that he simply saw the title as one of respect.

“When I come here, the people called me doctor, and then when I say yes, they say, ‘Oh, you’re wrong,” said Ding. “Sometimes, it’s just like ‘Sir,’ or something like that [a title], but when the people want to make a story, they will accuse you.”

Fang backed Ding’s claim, insisting they never once misrepresented Ding as having got his MD from Yale.

“He never went there for medical school,” said Fang. “He finished his medical school in China and came here. We never said that.”

The two said that they began Collegiate Academy a few years before starting PSA, which they felt qualified them to run PSA. They said that they are still doing programs for Collegiate Academy on weekends, and Ding claimed that there was at one point limited educational cooperation with St. Joseph’s School, due to its former headmaster Cushing’s relationship with, and intermittent employment at, PSA.

Ding showed a couple of PowerPoint presentations about the school, highlighting his vision. He said that PSA doesn’t only stand for Putnam Science Academy, but that the P stands for personal development, the S stands for service, and the A stands for three things; athletics, academics and arts. He said the pursuit of these three A’s is what inspired the purchase of various properties around Putnam.

Ding described these presentations as informational ones that he would give to prospective parents. He prefaced the second such presentation with an acknowledgment of the potential inaccuracies it may contain, while simultaneously trivializing the significance of their inclusion.

“If you like I can give you it, but I have to read in case some information is not-,” said Ding. “100% accurate,” interjected Fang, with a chuckle. “Yeah, should we use a period, or use a comma?,” asked Ding sarcastically.

Ding went as far as to say that he was encouraged to purchase these properties by his investors, not the other way around.

“This group of people came to me and said, ‘OK, Dr. Ding, this is small, we have the money to support you, purchase this,’” said Ding. “All this junk [referring to those who invested] tricked me, like they were supporting me and then they tried to damage me.”

Fang parroted the point, saying that neither she nor Ding approached any of those investors who have sued, but that it was the other way around.

“They said that we use this false information to let them invest,” said Fang. “First of all, it’s them approaching us, it’s not like we recruited them to invest over here.”

Ding and Fang painted themselves not only as victims of defamation but as victims of betrayal. They listed various ways in which they said they helped those that have filed suit against them; they claimed to have helped Wang, by referring her two kids to the Rectory School, a prestigious private Connecticut middle school. They spoke of how they helped Mary get on her feet, by allowing her to live with them for several months.

“I just think of it like a snake and the farmer,” said Ding. “And we’re the farmers.”

Ding said that the school’s financial troubles can be attributed solely to the costs of maintaining and operating the school and were not the result of any embezzlement. Ding said COVID especially worsened the school’s financial situation; he claimed the price of the school’s food increased 28% in half a year and that the cost of maintenance has increased. The two also said that the school has been generous in foregoing income to provide full rides to students who otherwise would not have been able to attend.

He and Fang denied Inside Investigator the opportunity to review any of the school’s finances, saying they would only comply under a court order. Ding said that his financial troubles started with his ownership of the school, and denied having any previous debt or financial problems, not knowing Inside Investigator had access to court documents that show otherwise.

Ding described the school’s financial issues with RaiseCrest by saying they wanted to become “a shareholder.” He said that he used that term as a blanket one for “whenever someone wants to work together” financially with PSA. He said that he could not give an estimate for the number of people who have invested in the school.

“For example, my mom gave me money, does that count on the list of investors?,” said Ding. “So that’s a question I couldn’t answer.”

Ding said he did not have the total number of debts owed to investors on hand, and Fang said that the information is confidential. She said that the two are continuing to work with RaiseCrest to work out a deal and described them as “nice people.” Ding went on a diatribe about how he has offered his own expertise and services to those who invested in him, while in return, they expect exorbitant interest rates.

“I think the basic difference is Dr. Ding wants to use money to help kids, to build something, to add value to his community, and when they give us some money, it’s for profit,” said Fang. “To keep the school running is already huge work for us. We want to pay them back, we can negotiate with them, if they allow us time.”

Fang claimed that Zhang and Wang have made the process more difficult by not providing them with their address to pay interest checks. Fang said that Wang had moved and that neither she nor Ding know which address to send them to.

“They are scared,” said Fang. “They thought we would do something to them because they do so many bad things to us.”

Fang said that the worst thing the two did was send letters to the top 50 American colleges during application season, in an attempt to make the schools aware of the fraud allegedly committed by Ding and Fang.

“I was crying with my two daughters,” said Fang. “My two daughters are the most precious things. They’re excellent kids, they’re self-disciplined, they excel in academics, sports, everything.”

Fang said she was made aware of the letter when several universities’ admission departments reached out to PSA’s guidance counselor and school attorney asking about the allegations. Fang said that ultimately, they did not impact her daughter’s ability to get into good universities.

Throughout the interview, the two went back and forth between attacking those they were indebted to and victimizing themselves and admitting their culpability and pleading for understanding.

“We did make a mistake, we promised we wanted to pay, but we failed,” said Fang. “I really want to pay them, I really want to get rid of them, however, supporting the school is the number one thing. I can’t have 200 kids with no school, nowhere to go. I can’t let my employees get no salary. So, this is my priority, and paying them is second.”

Fang said the two are “working really hard” to pay off their debts and mentioned that she and Ding are currently “negotiating a contract” with two friends of theirs to get more money invested. Fang said her parents recently wired her “$40,000 again” to assist PSA’s payroll.

“When I asked for the money, my parents didn’t even ask, ‘why’ or ‘what,’” said Fang. “It’s been so many times, they’re just not asking anymore.”

Ding and Fang also confirmed their past troubles with the IRS, with Fang saying that she doesn’t “feel shame about” their accounts being frozen. Ding said that it happens often in the business world. The two confirmed that the freeze has since been lifted and said that they have paid off the money they owed to the IRS.

“I used all my money, my mom’s money, his mom’s money, our friend’s money,” said Fang. “But I kept the school alive. We could have declared bankruptcy at that time, and PSA would not exist, 100 kids would not get a D1 offer.”

The two made it abundantly clear how much of their own resources they have funneled into the school. Ding joked that he could show a check for $24 he had made the week prior, and the two were incensed at the claims made by Jack regarding their usage of school funds for personal use. The two emphasized the fact that they have drained all of their personal finances into the school in an attempt to validate any money they may have taken out. Fang said that she had consulted with an accountant who told her that their usage of school funds was “fine.”

“Why is nobody asking me, you are bad, why are you putting your private money into the school?” said Ding. “I believe this question is an insult.”

Fang said that the school has two accounts, one for the school’s funding and one which is an owner’s equity account. She said the reason that Jack would make payments to personal items such as her daughter’s tuition, for example, was because he was granted access to both accounts. Fang insisted that she and Ding have followed Generally Accepted Accounting Practices.

Ding had especially heated words for Jack. Fang said the two felt obligated to keep him on the staff at first because he had familiarity with the school’s maintenance issues. They said by the end of his tenure, however, they wanted him out of their hair so badly that they offered him 6 months of severance pay. Both Ding and Fang claimed that if anyone was stealing from the school, it was Jack.

“He stole everything,” said Fang. “If we ordered a ten pack of wood, there would be seven in his house, and he’d only use three here.”

Ding said that he tried “treating him,” by bringing him along with him to China for business and hiring his son, who suffers from a disability. Ding said he “trusted him too much.” Ding accused him of stealing tools, sprinklers, and other items involved in the school’s maintenance. He accused Jack and Randy of “trying to destroy us.”

Fang confirmed that within the last year, PSA has had a “very high turnover rate” because the prior head of the school took them “in the wrong direction”. Fang said that she was “a very nice person” but that her vision for the school was incompatible with theirs. She said that when they parted ways, it only made sense to part ways with the staff that she brought in with her. Ding said that the people they let go were “negative,” and Fang related it to parting with a tumor.

“People try to make trouble, try to damage the people who are doing a lot, whether they’re jealous or whatever,” said Ding.

For close to 45 minutes to cap off the interview, the two tried to plead their cases against the allegations laid before them. Ding scrolled through his phone and showed photos and messages of him with various students, telling stories of the countries they came from, the opportunities for higher learning and Division 1 scholarships that the school has buttressed, and the generous full-ride scholarships they provided to students from impoverished backgrounds. Fang insisted that Inside Investigator ought to cover more positive aspects of the school, such as its successful athletic programs, instead of shining a light on its finances.

“If you want to do anything, go interview my kids, go interview my coach, my head of the school, you can do something nice for the opening season of basketball,” said Fang. She said that continued coverage of “rumors” would make it “even harder for us to raise the money, right? For recruiting as well, it’s hurting us.”

Despite the odds stacked against them, Ding and Fang claim to have hope for the school’s financial future. Several times they mentioned working to find new sources of funding, while simultaneously insisting on their willingness to work with those that they are already indebted to. On one hand, they boasted that enrollment increased each year, claiming these increases would help to raise additional revenue, while on the other, they boasted of the generous full-ride scholarship offers they provide.

“We’re getting back on track,” said Fang. “Our enrollment has increased every year, and our income has increased every year, and of those talented kids who graduate, maybe some of them will help the school as well. We have at least 20-30 coaches helping us, so I think there’s hope over here.”

Above all else, however, the two say their main goal is to provide for the students, which Ding frequently referred to as his “sons and daughters.”

“We don’t want to make money from this, we want to pass this healthy school, PSA, to the next person, the next generation,” said Fang. 

Ultimately, Ding’s tumultuous run as president of PSA seems to rest on borrowed time. In addition to the impending threat of foreclosure posed by several judgment liens totaling over $7 million, it’s also likely that Ding is currently under investigation by the FBI. Both Jack and Jill told Inside Investigator that they had been contacted or questioned by FBI agents about their time working at PSA.

Both said they were contacted in late 2017 or early 2018 by FBI agents. Jack said the agent who called him was from the agency’s New London office, and that he sat down and met with him at Baker’s Dozen, a bakery and coffee shop in Brooklyn, CT.

“He showed me all his credentials, and we went about our business talking,” said Jack. “He told me stuff that just blew my mind, and obviously I can’t repeat that stuff, because I’m sure it’s still an active investigation.”

This marks the second time that Jack had allegedly been questioned by a federal agent regarding Ding. The first time was during the immediate aftermath of the school’s bank accounts being frozen. Jack said at that time, he was brought down for questioning at the Federal Building in Hartford. He said he sat down with an investigator who asked him what he knew about Ding. Jack said that the agent confirmed to him that he was not a certified doctor in the United States, mentioned his prior case relating to his former stint running a Subway franchise, and proceeded to question him on Ding’s financial practices.

“I said I don’t know anything about his money practices,” said Jack. “Whatever comes in the front door, I see, whatever comes out the back door, I do not see that at all. I pay the bills as they come in if the money’s available, if it’s not, I tell Ding, he goes to get it, whether he does or doesn’t, that’s on him.”

Ding himself addressed the interest that the FBI had taken in the school, saying that he had spoken with an FBI agent, and that agents questioned others. Ding claimed that one agent told him afterwards that he didn’t want to pursue the case because “there’s too much junk” surrounding it.

Regardless of Ding’s nonchalance surrounding the potential for the school’s closure, Jack said he has advised any of his friends left on PSA’ staff to leave before it’s too late.

“When a hammer comes down, and he [Ding] takes off, there’s going to be a standing school with an obnoxious amount of debt, and everyone needing a check,” said Jack.

Ultimately, everyone interviewed shared the same thoughts on Ding; that he deserves to be held accountable, and that it is only a matter of time.

“He’s bad for our community, bad for that school, bad for young people,” said Jack. “He’s a bad man, period.”

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