Briefly, Dallas Gibson was found guilty this year of plagiarism in 2004, and ordered to pay almost $½m in court costs. So I suspect he is indeed now bankrupt.
This article from The Australian of 7 January 2009 provides a summary of the outcome of the case.
In about 2000 or 2001 I was invited to provide a testimonial that Dallas Gibson could use on his Icarus College website (for the preparation of which, together with a short biography, I was paid a nominal fee.) As an educationalist I thought the idea of being able to take pseudo-UMAT tests in advance of the real thing was a good idea, and was happy to say so.
Then in 2003 he approached me to see whether I would design some sample questions he could use for his mock UMAT tests. He was aiming to build up a bank of several hundred questions so that people could take his test more than once and be presented with different questions on each occasion. Again I thought this was a good idea, and I agreed to prepare a formal proposal for him.
This was not a project I felt able to take on by myself however, so with two other consultants I prepared a proposal under which the work could be performed. (There was no charge for preparation of the proposal, although several hundred dollars' worth of work was involved in producing it.) Had Dallas Gibson accepted the proposal it would have resulted in Icarus College's being able to build up a bank of questions over a period of time at a unit cost of $60/question.
Dallas Gibson's verbal response implied that he thought this was far too expensive, and that he would certainly not accept the proposal. (I hasten to add that he was perfectly justified in taking this view.)
Our proposal was dated 25 February 2004, and it is clear from the newspaper article that it must have been almost immediately after refusing the proposal that Dallas Gibson decided to steal the work of someone else instead. (And let's not be mealy-mouthed about this, plagiarism is theft -- it's what tertiary students lose their university places for.)
In the event, he now has to pay about $625 for each of the questions he stole, none of which can Icarus College use. Had he accepted our proposal he could have had his own questions, perfectly legally, for less than one-tenth of what he is now obliged to pay.
Having read of his plagiarism conviction, I twice asked him to remove my biography and testimonial from his website. I did this because I felt I could no longer afford to be associated, however tenuously, with him or with Icarus College. But he has still not removed the material, and in neither case did he bother to reply to my requests.
I told him in my second message that if had not acceded to my request by the end of February 2009 I would be obliged to take further steps to dissociate myself from him. He has not done so,
and this is the only reason I am posting this.
Despite my earlier approval, I would now strongly encourage anyone considering studying with Icarus College to think again. In my view, whatever its raison d'être or quality of its technical material, it is operated unethically, unprofessionally, and dishonestly.
Mike
Edited to add -- Further to this, I note that the people from whom Dallas Gibson plagiarised have really got stuck into him on their website
here.
On that page are given links to various costs and other Orders, including a Bankruptcy Order dated 27 March 2008.
The website authors are (understandably) angry, but have made what I would consider to be some unsubstantiated claims --
"He does NOT have sponsorships or permission to use the logos of the companies he displays on his websites... His 'Testimonials' are fictitious, unauthorised and/or 'spiced up'." Possibly, but the authors present no evidence in support of those claims.
.
MJA
