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Naresh Rane, 68, gave 10 of those certificates to a former local councilman who was later found dead of suicide along with his wife, authorities said.
Rane, formerly of Closter, owned and operated the now-defunct Axiom Healthcare Academy on Kennedy Boulevard in North Bergen, which touted itself as a provider of massage therapy training.
Anyone who didn't want to go through the training could pay Rane anywhere from $1,000 to $2,600 for the necessary certificate to obtain a massage therapy license, federal authorities said.
Rane, currently of Tewksbury, also supplied phony transcripts listing classes and grades, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
Rane also gave 10 bogus certificates and transcripts to former Westwood and Ridgewood Councilman Bob Miller, who was found dead with his wife, Aecha, at their Westwood home in July 2017, Sellinger said.
Miller, 67, had admitted in federal court four months earlier that he sold bogus training certificates to workers who offered more than the usual rubdowns at massage parlors in Passaic, Hudson, Union and Middlesex counties.
SEE: Deaths Of Former Westwood, Ridgewood Councilman, Wife Both Suicides, Prosecutor Says
Rane took a deal from the government rather than risk trial, pleading guilty in June 2018 to "knowingly and intentionally using and causing the use of facilities in interstate commerce to promote, manage, establish, carry on, and facilitate the business of prostitution."
He must serve out just about all of his 33-month sentence because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
In addition, U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi sentenced Rane to three years of supervised release.
Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI with the investigation leading to the plea and sentencing, secured by Senior Litigation Counsel Mark J. McCarren of his Special Prosecutions Division in Newark.
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