IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 24-1764 Filed December 3, 2025
HELENA DAHNWEIH, Petitioner-Appellant,
vs.
IOWA BOARD OF NURSING, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Samantha Gronewald,
Judge.
A petitioner appeals the district court’s order affirming the Iowa Board of
Nursing’s decision to revoke her nursing license. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Trent Nelson (argued) of Sellers Galenbeck & Nelson, Clive, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, Breanne A. Stoltze (argued) and Ian M.
Jongewaard (until withdrawal), Assistant Solicitors General, Eric Wessan, Solicitor
General, Patrick Valencia, Deputy Solicitor General, and Tyler L. Eason and
Jennifer Klein, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.
Heard at oral argument by Tabor, C.J., and Badding and Sandy, JJ. 2
SANDY, Judge.
In 1990, Helena Dahnweih and her family fled the brutal civil war taking
place in her home country of Liberia. She had little opportunity for advanced
education in her home country but always desired to help others, working as a
church chaplain. After arriving as a refugee in the United States, Helena sought
to further her ambitions of helping others through a career in nursing. And since
that arrival, Helena has been consistently climbing the nursing educational ladder,
hoping to someday become a nurse practitioner. Along the way, she enrolled at
Med-Life Institute (MLI) in Florida in 2017 for the purpose of completing the final
course towards her associate degree in nursing, a required achievement for
obtaining licensure as a registered nurse. She completed that course and then
passed the national nursing exam required for licensure. But years later it was
revealed that MLI, among many other for-profit nursing schools, had engaged in
the practice of selling fraudulent diplomas and transcripts to aspiring registered
nurses. The Iowa Nursing Board then initiated an investigation into Helena and
found that MLI—not Helena—had sent the board an inaccurate transcript at the
time Helena was applying for licensure in Iowa.
Instead of seeking to clarify or correct Helena’s educational record to
determine if she meets the requirements for licensure in Iowa, the board accused
Helena of fraud in procuring her license1 and eventually found “substantial
evidence” she did so. On her petition for judicial review, the district court agreed.
1 Iowa Code section 147.55 (2023) provides no avenue by which the board can
revoke or suspend a licensee’s license to practice based on inadequate credentials unless the licensee is “guilty of . . . [f]raud in procuring a license.” 3
But not only is any evidence of her purported fraud glaringly sparse, a fraud finding
in this case requires the fact finder to engage in large leaps of logic resolved only
by an assumption that Helena was acting in bad faith, as well as an inexplicable
disregard for her reasonable responses to the board’s questioning.
We decline to do the same and will not punish Helena for the fraud
perpetrated by her nursing school. Our country has been called a place where the
“oppressed [and] persecuted of all Nations”2 can “become one people”3 with our
citizenry. By successfully transitioning to our country from her war-torn home,
putting forth years of hard work and delivering medical care in support of her fellow
Americans, all while raising her family, Helena has done exactly that. For the
reasons stated below, we reverse the order of the district court and the decision of
the board and remand for entry of an order consistent with this opinion.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
In Liberia, Helena was a chaplain and her husband was a pastor. After
emigrating from Liberia in 1990, Helena and her family lived in various locations
throughout the United States over the years. She attended nursing courses at
many different educational institutions due to those moves. Early on, she studied
for and earned her certification as a certified nursing assistant so that she could
work in the medical field while studying to become a licensed nurse. Eventually,
2 Letter from George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Cont’l Army, to Joshua Holmes, volunteer Ass’ns of the Kingdom of Ir. (Dec. 2, 1783) (on file with the National Archives: Founders Online), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-12127. 3 Letter from George Washington, President of the U.S., to John Adams, Vice
President of the U.S. (Nov. 15, 1794) (on file with the National Archives: Founders Online), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-17-02-0112. 4
in 2008, Helena completed her licensed-practical-nurse (LPN) studies and exam
and became a licensed practical nurse in Illinois. Following her licensure as an
LPN, Helena attended and earned educational credit toward her associate degree
in nursing at eight different institutions, including Kaplan University, now known
and officially credited as Purdue University Global (Purdue).4
In August 2016, Helena began her coursework at Purdue in Cedar Rapids
and attended the institution through the remaining credits in her degree, including
the capstone course in the summer 2016 semester. Her transcript reflects that
she failed the capstone course and was subsequently “dismissed” from the
program. Helena testified that the capstone course culminated in a true-false
exam, which required students to explain the reasoning behind each of their true-
false answer responses. Helena, unaware that she was also required to provide
explanations for her answers, failed the exam by default. She was not permitted
to retake the exam and failed the capstone course, leading to her dismissal from
Purdue. Because successful completion of a nursing degree is a requirement to
take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), Helena would be
unable to become licensed as a registered nurse (RN) without it.
Helena immediately began searching for an institution that would accept her
earned credits, permit her to retake the capstone course, and graduate with her
degree. The board does not dispute Helena’s claim that she only needed this final
course to complete her degree. Helena then found MLI, a university located and
certified through the State of Florida, whose administration informed her MLI would
4 We refer to this institution as Purdue University Global because that is how the
institution refers to itself on Helena’s official transcript. 5
accept all her transfer credit. Helena testified that MLI quoted her a tuition price of
$6000 for the semester which would have included courses she had already taken.
Helena ultimately paid $3000 in tuition for the semester because she only took the
capstone course and none of the other offered courses.
Helena received email correspondence from university administration in
September 2016 providing onboarding information for new students, information
about on-campus requirements, and notifying her that the semester would begin
in October. Notable to the board’s fraud findings against Helena, these emails
were sent from the administrators’ personal email addresses. Helena went on to
finish the capstone course without incident, largely prepared for the course by
reviewing materials remotely and at least twice flying to Florida to conduct the in-
person course class sessions in October and December. Helena presented airline
ticket stubs to the board as evidence of her flights to and from Florida.
In March 2018, Helena received a “completion letter” informing her she had
successfully completed the program requirements. Due to an illness with her
mother, she did not take the NCLEX until March 2019. She passed the NCLEX on
her first attempt. She then applied for her RN license in Florida. Helena received
her RN license in Florida on March 8. Shortly after that, she applied for her RN
license in Iowa.
As part of the licensure process in Iowa, the board requested a transcript
from MLI. MLI sent the board an “official transcript” in March 2019. The transcript
provided to the board directly from MLI5 indicated attendance from January to
5 Helena had no part in the production or delivery of her transcript to the board.
“[I]t was established that it is the policy of the [b]oard that they will only accept a 6
December 2017, despite Helena having attended from October to
December 2017. Helena testified that she did not review her transcript until the
board notified her of the investigation into her credentials. Following submission
of her transcripts, the board issued Helena her nursing license. Since receiving
her Iowa nursing license, Helena has practiced as a nurse without incident.
In February 2023, the Florida State Board of Education recommended that
MLI cease enrollment of new students. The United States Department of Justice
(DOJ) had been investigating MLI, along with other Florida nursing schools, in
partnership with other federal agencies and the State of Florida in an investigation
dubbed “Operation Nightengale.” The DOJ alleged that the owners and operators
of these schools had conspired to produce and sell fraudulent nursing transcripts
and diplomas. MLI’s owner was indicted as a result of this investigation and
admitted that MLI had awarded both legitimate and illegitimate diplomas. MLI’s
owner provided the DOJ with a list of students who had received legitimate
degrees and a list of students who had been issued fraudulent degrees. Helena’s
name appeared on neither list.
Knowing that she had attended MLI, the board then decided to investigate
Helena’s credentials. In May 2023, the board charged Helena with falsification of
the application, credentials or records submitted to the board for licensure. The
transcript from an accredited university directly.” This differentiates Helena’s case from Rosen v. Board of Medical Examiners of Iowa, which the district court relied upon in its decision to affirm the board. 539 N.W.2d 345 (Iowa 1995). There, the Board of Medical Examiners found an applicant for medical licensure committed fraud when he submitted a signed application that omitted key information about his preceptorship, despite the applicant’s argument that he had another individual submit the application for him. Id. at 348, 352. Here, Helena was not permitted to create her transcript or submit it to the board. 7
investigator concluded that although the transcript MLI had produced was
inaccurate, she “did not have a negative impression of [Helena]. I did not lack
sympathy for her situation.” The investigator also noted that Helena had provided
MLI with a copy of her Purdue transcript for the purpose of MLI transferring the
credit.
Following the investigation, the board held a contested hearing in July. The
board subsequently concluded that Helena “engaged in fraud to procure a license
to practice in this state,” revoked her nursing license, and assessed a fine. The
board explained its decision as follows:
[T]he Board does not find credible [Helena]’s claims that she had no knowledge that negotiating the rate of tuition, little to no classroom instruction, uncertain class schedules, and faculty and staff using personal email addresses for official communication were all, at a minimum, highly unusual for a legitimate educational program. Rather, the evidence in this record shows that [Helena] personally corresponded with individuals known to have engaged in a scheme to sell fraudulent nursing school credentials. The record further demonstrates [Helena] paid $3,000 to obtain a nursing associate degree from MLI with a transcript showing she completed a number of courses at the institution, while she freely admitted to having never completed education there beyond NCLEX preparatory instruction. The record also shows [Helena] originally applied for licensure in the state of Florida, despite having lived in Iowa, taken the NCLEX exam in this state, and had no apparent plans to live or work in Florida.
Helena then filed a petition for judicial review in October and a hearing was
held. The district court held that substantial evidence supported the board’s ruling
that Helena had fraudulently procured her license, dismissed Helena’s other
claims, and granted the board’s motion to strike its ruling deliberations from the
record.
Helena now appeals the district court’s denial of her petition for judicial
review. 8
II. Standard of Review
Our scope of review in appeals of agency actions permits us to “reverse,
modify, or grant other appropriate relief only if agency action is affected by error of
law, is unsupported by substantial evidence in the record, or is characterized by
abuse of discretion.” Burns v. Bd. of Nursing, 495 N.W.2d 698, 699 (Iowa 1993)
(citing Iowa Code § 17A.19). For the evidence supporting the agency’s action to
be considered substantial, a reasonable person must be able to “find it adequate
to reach the given conclusion, even if a reviewing court might draw a contrary
inference.” Id. We consider all evidence, including that “opposed to the agency’s
view.” Id.
III. Discussion
a. Substantial Evidence
Helena first argues that under Iowa Code section 17A.19, “[t]he district court
erred when it found that the [board] had substantial evidence that Helena
committed fraud.”
Under Iowa Code section 147.55(1), the board may discipline a nursing
licensee “when the board determines that the licensee is guilty of . . . [f]raud in
procuring a license.” Under the administrative code, “[f]raud in procuring a license
may include, but need not be limited to . . . [f]alsification of the application,
credentials, or records submitted to the board for licensure.” Iowa Admin. Code
r. 655–4.6(1)(a) (now Iowa Admin. Code r. 481–618.4(1)(a)). Iowa Code
section 272C.3(2)(a) provides that the board’s disciplinary powers include the right
to revoke the licensee’s license. 9
Fraud under Iowa Code section 147.55 follows the common-law elements
for fraud. Rosen, 539 N.W.2d at 350. In Iowa, a common law fraud claim requires
the plaintiff to prove
(1) the defendant made a representation to the plaintiff, (2) the representation was false, (3) the representation was material, (4) the defendant knew the representation was false, (5) the defendant intended to deceive the plaintiff, (6) the plaintiff acted in justifiable reliance on the truth of the representation, (7) the representation was a proximate cause of the plaintiff's damages, and (8) the amount of damages.
Dier v. Peters, 815 N.W.2d 1, 7 (Iowa 2012) (cleaned up).
Here, the parties dispute whether Helena knew the false representation in
her transcript was false and whether she intended to deceive the board. “Intent to
deceive may be proven in one of two ways: by proof that the speaker (1) has actual
knowledge of the falsity of the representation or (2) speaks in reckless disregard
of whether those representations are true or false.” Rosen, 539 N.W.2d at 350.
Reckless disregard exceeds mere carelessness and must arise to knowing
indifference. See id. at 351. “Knowledge is defined in Iowa’s uniform instructions
to mean the defendant ‘had a conscious awareness’ of the element requiring
knowledge. An honest mistake or understandable mistake is not a dishonest act.”
Sahu v. Iowa Bd. of Med. Exam’rs, 537 N.W.2d 674, 678 (Iowa 1995) (internal
citations omitted).
We must begin our analysis by assessing which specific findings are
relevant to a determination of whether Helena committed fraud in procuring her
license. To accomplish that, we attempt to discern what type of fraud the board is
alleging Helena committed—since she had no part in the production of her
transcript or its delivery to the board. Those acts were committed entirely by MLI. 10
Helena’s MLI transcript erroneously credited her with completing certain courses
at MLI rather than transferring her previously earned credits from other institutions.
It is worth noting that, in its ruling, the board made the verifiably false factual finding
that “[Helena] submitted to the [b]oard a transcript from [MLI].” As the board even
admits in its appellate brief, it was MLI who sent the board Helena’s transcript. It
is Helena’s position that she never saw her transcript until she was notified the
board would be investigating her educational background. Thus, the board’s
credibility findings related to Helena’s statements regarding her transcript are
based in large part on that erroneous factual finding.
The board does not dispute Helena’s claim that she intended to transfer her
prior credits to MLI, was told by MLI administration that they would accept those
credits, and that the Purdue credits were all legitimately earned. The board does
not dispute that Helena only needed to complete the capstone course to complete
her degree. Her amount of prior credit (103.0 credits) far exceeds the number of
credits required by MLI to confer a degree (78.0 credits). Even accounting for the
likelihood that not all her credits would be cleanly transferred, she had at least
thirty-five additional credits to pad the difference between MLI’s and Purdue’s
credit requirements. It would then be reasonable for Helena to believe that MLI
would only require her successful completion of the capstone course for the
institution to confer her degree—especially considering that Helena was searching
for nursing programs that would do exactly that.
And Helena in no way benefitted from those transcript errors. She would
have no reason to expect MLI’s failure to transfer her actual prior credits that MLI
had promised her it would transfer. Helena had no incentive to concoct fake credits 11
when she actually earned a large volume of transfer credits and flew to Florida to
attend her one remaining class on multiple occasions.
So what fraud did Helena commit here? She possessed a plethora of prior
credit, indeed took and completed MLI’s capstone course (although the board
argues against that course’s academic rigor), and had no role in the production or
delivery of her transcript to the board, despite the board’s claims otherwise. The
board’s theory of Helena’s fraud is based almost entirely in its assertion that “MLI
has since been identified as a fraudulent program.” True, MLI has been confirmed
to have continued issuing degrees after its official closure. But it was an accredited
institution at the time Helena attended. Helena testified to the fact that she
researched online and saw that MLI was accredited, or at the very least, was
certified by the state of Florida. The Florida Department of Education had not
advised MLI to cease onboarding new students until nearly six years after Helena
had graduated. A college accreditation or state certification holds little value if a
student can nonetheless be held liable for fraud for their mere attendance at the
institution. The board argues that Helena should have known MLI was fraudulent
even if the DOJ and the State of Florida did not yet have knowledge of that. And
even if MLI was not accredited, we would think that the board would have observed
that fact at the time Helena was applying for her nursing license—having expressly
reported MLI as her degree-granting institution—or at the very least, it would have
observed such after receiving her transcript from MLI. But the board raised no
concerns and issued Helena’s nursing license without complaint.
The board’s aforementioned argument that the capstone lacked academic
rigor is also unhelpful in furtherance of its claim that Helena is guilty of fraud. It is 12
undisputed that Helena earned over one hundred legitimate nursing school credits
over the course of years and many moves around the country. The only course
for which the board questions the academic rigor is the capstone that Helena took
at MLI. The capstone mainly consists of NCLEX preparation materials and sample
questions. It is a licensing prep course specifically tailored to ensure that a nursing
student is prepared for the challenges of the NCLEX exam. After taking MLI’s
capstone, Helena immediately passed the NCLEX—a decent indicator that the
capstone served its purpose. We do not fault Helena for failing to question the
legitimacy of the course’s academic schedule—she had no reason to.
Thus, we are left with the factual trail of breadcrumbs the board cites to
support its core argument that Helena “act[ed] with knowledge of the falsity rather
than innocently or accidentally,” State v. Romeo, 542 N.W.2d 543, 549 (Iowa
1996), or with “reckless disregard of whether [her] representations are true or
false,” Rosen, 539 N.W.2d at 350. The board took particular issue with Helena’s
communications with school administrators, who typically emailed her from
personal accounts containing Gmail and Yahoo domain names. While perhaps
unprofessional, this alone could not in itself reveal the school to be fraudulent,
especially when Helena flew to the school to attend in-person coursework and
completed the course per MLI’s requirements. And since Helena’s communication
with the MLI administration took place over personal email, we can infer that MLI
sent Helena’s transcript to the board from a personal email address as well. So
as it relates to email or accreditation, the board was likely presented with some of
the same “red flags” it now wishes to weaponize against Helena but did not itself
recognize. 13
We are especially unpersuaded by the board’s concerns with Helena’s
“discounted” tuition. Helena testified that she was quoted $6000 as MLI’s full-
semester tuition rate. She then informed MLI that she did not need to take on a
full course load—she only needed to complete the capstone course to finish her
degree. MLI then offered a $3000 tuition rate. We see no issue with the fact that
Helena paid lower tuition as a product of taking fewer classes than included in the
originally quoted tuition. Tuition is typically based on the number of credits taken,
and Helena’s tuition agreement with MLI is consistent with that practice.
Lastly, the board criticizes Helena’s decision to apply for licensure in Florida
shortly before applying for licensure in Iowa. It does not articulate its position for
this critique against Helena, although we find it insightful to the board’s overall
position against Helena—any decision not immediately apparent is ascribed to her
bad faith. We find it difficult to defer to the board’s credibility findings, which were
not based on its observations of Helena's demeanor but instead on its spin of the
evidence. Cf. Hora v. Hora, 5 N.W.3d 635, 645 (Iowa 2024) (discussing the
importance of the court's assessment of a witness's demeanor as a reason for the
deference given to its credibility findings); see also Menegbo v. Iowa Dep’t of
Inspections & Appeals, No. 07-0170, 2007 WL 4553345, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App.
Dec. 28, 2007) (giving less weight to an administrative law judge’s credibility
assessment because the judge did not see or hear the witnesses testify). The best
theory we can amass for the board’s argument on this point is based on the board’s
separate finding that diploma-mill schools “encouraged [students] to apply for
licensure in states perceived to exercise a lower threshold of scrutiny.” But the
board also found that Iowa was one of those low-threshold states, so under this 14
reasoning, an applicant’s application for licensure in Iowa could also be used as
evidence against that applicant in a board fraud allegation—even if that applicant
lives in Iowa.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that MLI was running a diploma-mill scheme
and that it submitted fraudulent transcript data to the board. It is clear that both
Helena and the board were victimized by MLI’s fraudulent acts. But since MLI no
longer exists as an entity and its owner was indicted by the DOJ, Helena is the
only party left for the board to target. As outlined above, we are flatly unconvinced
by the board’s arguments, such as the accreditation controversy, the $3000 tuition,
Helena’s decision to apply for licensure in Florida, and ultimately, its argument that
Helena knowingly committed fraud based on her failure to review a transcript she
did not produce or deliver to the board. And alongside the other evidence, such
as her physical attendance at the school for the capstone course and immediate
passage of the NCLEX, we find that email communication with school staff over
personal email falls far short of the standard that she acted with “actual knowledge
of the falsity of [her] representation or . . . in reckless disregard of whether those
representations are true or false.” Rosen, 539 N.W.2d at 350.
In our view, no reasonable person would find the evidence adequate to
reach the conclusion that Helena was guilty of fraud in procuring her nursing
license. We reverse the district court’s denial of Helena’s petition for judicial review
as well as the decision of the board.6 We remand to the district court for entry of
6 Helena also argues the board’s decision should be reversed because its action
was “[b]ased upon an irrational, illogical, or wholly unjustifiable application of law to fact,” “unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious,” and “motivated by an improper purpose.” See Iowa Code § 17A.19(10)(e), (m), and (n). Because we are 15
an order reversing the board’s order revoking Helena’s nursing license and
ordering her to pay fees.
b. Irreparable Injury
Helena argues that the Board’s decision was not required by law and
causes “irreparable injury” under Iowa Code section 17A.19(10)(k).
Section 17A.19(10)(k) permits us to “reverse, modify, or grant other appropriate
relief from agency action” if we determine Helena’s
substantial rights . . . have been prejudiced because the agency action is . . . [n]ot required by law and its negative impact on the private rights affected is so grossly disproportionate to the benefits accruing to the public interest from that action that it must necessarily be deemed to lack any foundation in rational agency policy.
Helena highlights the other damage she has suffered as a result of the
board’s case against her, such as having her Medicare/Medicaid participation
terminated and being described by the press as having committed fraud. But
Helena does not show that this damage is irreparable. She does not argue that
her Medicaid/Medicare participation will remain revoked if she is cleared of the
board’s charges against her and her license is reinstated. And while the press
story written about the case is unfortunate for Helena, that story simply restates
the original findings of the board without additional commentary or opinion.
reversing the board’s decision on Helena’s substantial-evidence argument, her arguments under section 17A.19(10)(e), (m), and (n) are moot. Helena further contends the board’s confidential deliberations should be made available for her defense under Iowa Code section 21.5(5)(b)(1) due to the attorney general’s office’s inadvertent disclosure of those deliberations to her attorney. This argument is also moot due to Helena’s success on appeal, and we do not address it further. 16
This is not a close case. Yet we are not convinced that the damage has
been “grossly disproportionate to the benefits accruing to the public interest” when
the public interest at issue here is so vital—ensuring that the individuals licensed
to deliver medical care to the public are properly credentialed and qualified to
deliver that care. See id. § 17A.19(10)(k). Further, we have reversed the board’s
decision on Helena’s substantial-evidence claim, and she has not specified what
further relief she is seeking under Iowa Code section 17A.19(10)(k). We decline
to grant further relief under Helena’s irreparable-injury claim.
c. Attorney Fees
Helena requests attorney fees pursuant to Iowa Code section 625.29.
Because she has prevailed in her appeal and the board’s decision was not
supported by substantial evidence, we remand for the district court to determine
whether the requirements of section 625.29 have been met and the amount, if any,
of attorney fees that should be awarded upon Helena’s filing of an updated attorney
fee affidavit.
IV. Conclusion
In sum, we reverse the district court’s denial of Helena’s petition for judicial
review. We remand to the district court for (1) entry of an order reversing the
board’s order revoking Helena’s nursing license and requiring her to pay fees and
costs, and (2) determination of whether reasonable attorney fees can be awarded
under Iowa Code section 625.29 upon Helena’s filing of an updated attorney fee
affidavit.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.