A North Carolina school director faces felony charges over allegations she ran a sham homeschool to swindle $700,000 in federal student aid through a local community college.

Brenda Joyce Hall, 51, was in federal court last Thursday to face charges of conspiracy to commit student loan fraud and wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft stemming from her role as head of a non-public home school called the “Halls of Knowledge,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office cited by The Fayetteville Observer.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

The school was located at The McCollum Ranch, “home to followers of John C. McCollum, who claimed to be the chief apostle of a religious group he operated there for years,” according to the news site.

McCollum died in 2018 while awaiting trial on charges of involuntary servitude of children, obtaining property by false pretense and continuing a criminal enterprise. Hall faces 10 counts of obtaining property by false pretense, as well as charges for felony conspiracy and falsifying documents in that case, the Observer reports.

The most recent charges against Hall involve accusations she fabricated high school transcripts for students to attend Wake Technical Community College, where they obtained federal student aid that was funneled back to the ranch.

According to The Observer:

The students were told that they would get a high school diploma; would get a laptop or would get to keep some money; would not have to do coursework; or they would not be responsible for the student loans, according to the statement.

After tuition was paid, students were directed, in some instances, to cash out the remaining funds and pay them over to the ranch, the statement said. The money was used to fund the operations there, fish markets, and other ventures, it said.

The Associated Press reports the scheme went undetected for several years because Hall and others completed online courses.

McCollum operated several John C’s Fish Markets and mobile grills in Cumberland County for years, and he was arrested with nine others in January 2018 following an 11-month investigation. McCollum was jailed for several months until his bail was reduced from $1 million to $100,000.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

McCollum returned to the ranch after his release in May, and died of congestive heart failure in August 2018, his attorney Allen Rogers, told WRAL at the time.

“Children of the members of McCollum’s group, some as young as nine years old, were forced to work full time in the fish markets with little or no compensation, lifting heavy boxes, keeping fish iced, cutting fish and cleaning, as well as performing construction and maintenance on the mobile grills after hours, authorities said,” according to the news site.

“Authorities had been working for some time to gather evidence and make arrests in the case, but got a break in August 2017, after they found a 15-year-old who had run away from McCollum’s compound. Investigators were unsure how many children were involved in the group over the years because McCollum took his crusade across the country to recruit children.”