Guilty Plea by Former Education Department Official

Matteo Fontana, the former general manager for financial-partner services in Education Department's student-aid office, pleaded guilty to conflict-of-interest and false-statement charges over his ownership of stock in a loan company, The Wall Street Journal reported. Fontana held as many as 10,500 shares of Education Lending Group Inc. when he joined the Education Department in 2002, prosecutors said. The holdings became public when Andrew Cuomo, New York State's attorney general, started investigating conflicts of interest between the lending industry and colleges.