2019 college admissions bribery scandal
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In 2019, a scandal arose over a
criminal conspiracy In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance ...
to influence undergraduate admissions decisions at several top American
universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
. The investigation into the conspiracy was
code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
d Operation Varsity Blues. The investigation and related charges were made public on March 12, 2019, by United States federal prosecutors. At least 53 people have been charged as part of the conspiracy, a number of whom pleaded guilty or agreed to plead guilty. Thirty-three parents of college applicants were accused of paying more than $25million between 2011 and 2018 to William Rick Singer, organizer of the scheme, who used part of the money to
fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
ulently inflate entrance exam test scores and
bribe Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corr ...
college officials. Of the 32 parents named in a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, more than half had apparently paid bribes to have their children enrolled at the
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
(USC). Singer controlled the two firms involved in the scheme, Key Worldwide Foundation and The Edge College & Career Network (also known as "The Key"). He pleaded guilty and cooperated with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) in gathering incriminating evidence against co-conspirators. He said he unethically facilitated college admission for children in more than 750 families. Singer faces up to 65 years in prison, and a fine of $1.25million. Prosecutors in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the
District of Massachusetts The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (in case citations, D. Mass.) is the federal district court whose territorial jurisdiction is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The first court session was hel ...
, led by
United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal c ...
Andrew Lelling Andrew E. Lelling (born 1970) is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 2017 to 2021. He is best known for leading Operation Varsity Blues, the federal investigation and prosecution o ...
, unsealed
indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...
s and complaints for
felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resu ...
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
to commit
mail fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activit ...
and
honest services mail fraud Honest services fraud is a crime defined in (the federal mail and wire fraud statute), added by the United States Congress in 1988, which states "For the purposes of this chapter, the term ''scheme or artifice to defraud'' includes a scheme or ...
against 50 people, including Singer, who has been "portrayed ..as a criminal mastermind", university staff he bribed, and parents who were alleged to have used bribery and
fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
to secure admission for their children to 11 universities. Among the accused parents are prominent business-people and well-known actors. Those charges have a maximum term of 20 years in prison, supervised release of three years, and a $250,000 fine. One month later, 16 of the parents were also indicted by prosecutors for alleged felony conspiracy to commit
money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
. This third charge has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, supervised release of three years, and a $500,000 fine. The investigation's name, Operation Varsity Blues, comes from a 1999 film of the same name. The case is the largest of its kind to be prosecuted by the
US Justice Department The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and a ...
.


Discovery and charges

The
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) alleged that beginning in 2011, 33 parents of high school students conspired with other people to use
bribery Bribery is the Offer and acceptance, offering, Gift, giving, Offer and acceptance, receiving, or Solicitation, soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With reg ...
and other forms of
fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
to illegally arrange to have their children admitted to top colleges and universities. The first reporter was Julie Taylor-Vaz, a guidance counselor at Buckley School (a private school in Los Angeles), who in 2017 learned that a Buckley student identified as "Eliza" Bass – a pseudonym given by '' Vanity Fair'' – had been accepted to
Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...
,
Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
and
Loyola Marymount University Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near Playa Vista. LMU is the parent school to Loyola Law School, which is located ...
as an "African-American tennis whiz, ranked in the Top 10 in California," according to the report. However, "Eliza" was white and did not play tennis. Eliza's father, Adam J. Bass, a member of the Buckley School Board, initially denied that he had used an outside admissions consultant before finally admitting to Buckley that his family had hired Rick Singer, the
Newport Beach, California Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island, Newport ...
man who became infamous in March for being at the heart of the admissions scandal. Bass was a business partner of Singer's and therefore did not have to pay any money to Singer. Authorities became aware of the scheme around April 2018 when Los Angeles businessman Morrie Tobin, who was under investigation in an unrelated case for alleged
pump-and-dump Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the opera ...
conspiracy and
securities fraud Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in los ...
, offered information in exchange for leniency in the previously existing, unrelated case. Tobin, who attended but did not graduate from
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
, told authorities that the Yale women's soccer head coach, Rudolph "Rudy" Meredith, had asked him for $450,000 in exchange for helping his youngest daughter gain admission to the school. As part of his cooperation with the FBI, Tobin wore a recording device while talking to Meredith in a Boston hotel on April 12, 2018; Meredith subsequently agreed to cooperate with the authorities and led them to Singer. Meredith pleaded guilty as part of his cooperation with the prosecution. Tobin was not charged in this case, but in February 2019 he pleaded guilty in the unrelated securities fraud case.
United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines The United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines are rules published by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that set out a uniform policy for Sentence (law), sentencing individuals and organizations convicted of Classes of offenses under United States f ...
, to which judges often refer when deciding sentences, call for between eight and ten years behind bars. According to ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', ''Vanity Fair'', and
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
, prosecutors recommended 36 months of supervised release. In addition, Tobin agreed to forfeit $4million as part of his plea deal. Tobin was scheduled for sentencing at a hearing in June 2019, but this did not in fact take place. On March 12, 2019, federal prosecutors in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
unsealed a criminal complaint charging 50 people with
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
to commit
felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resu ...
mail fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activit ...
and
honest services mail fraud Honest services fraud is a crime defined in (the federal mail and wire fraud statute), added by the United States Congress in 1988, which states "For the purposes of this chapter, the term ''scheme or artifice to defraud'' includes a scheme or ...
in violation of Title 18
United States Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...
, Section 1349. Those charges have a maximum term of 20 years in prison, supervised release of three years, and a $250,000 fine. The charges were announced by
Andrew Lelling Andrew E. Lelling (born 1970) is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 2017 to 2021. He is best known for leading Operation Varsity Blues, the federal investigation and prosecution o ...
,
United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal c ...
for the
District of Massachusetts The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (in case citations, D. Mass.) is the federal district court whose territorial jurisdiction is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The first court session was hel ...
. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Rosen, Justin O'Connell, Leslie Wright, and Kristen Kearney of the securities and financial fraud unit were assigned as prosecutors of the case. FBI special agent Laura Smith signed the 204-page affidavit in support of the charges. On April 9, 16 of the original 33 charged parents (
Lori Loughlin Lori Anne Loughlin (; born July 28, 1964) is an American actress. From 1988 to 1995, she played Rebecca Donaldson Katsopolis on the ABC sitcom ''Full House'', and reprised the role for its Netflix sequel '' Fuller House'' (2016–2018). Loughlin ...
, her husband
Mossimo Giannulli Mossimo Giannulli (born Massimo Giannulli; June 4, 1963) is an American fashion designer who founded Mossimo, a mid-range clothing company, in 1986. In March 2019, Giannulli and his wife, actress Lori Loughlin, were charged and arrested in conne ...
,
Gamal Aziz Gamal Aziz, also known as Gamal Abdelaziz, (Arabic: جمال عزيز) (born ) is an Egyptian-American businessman. Aziz is the former president of Wynn Macau Limited and chief operating officer of Wynn Resorts Development. He was also the forme ...
, Douglas M. Hodge,
Bill McGlashan William E. McGlashan Jr. (born November 20, 1963) is an American businessman and former international private equity investor. McGlashan founded TPG Growth, the growth equity and smaller buyout investment arm of TPG Capital, a global private equi ...
, Diane and Todd Blake, I-Hsin "Joey" Chen, Michelle Janavs, Elizabeth and Manuel Henriquez, Elisabeth Kimmel, Marci Palatella, John Wilson, Homayoun Zadeh and Robert Zangrillo), who had not pleaded guilty to the original charges, were additionally charged with conspiracy to commit
money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
by federal prosecutors in Boston in a superseding indictment. The indictment added those defendants to an existing case against David Sidoo, another of the 33 parents, that was already pending before
Judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
Nathaniel Gorton. The indictment alleged that the parents engaged in a conspiracy to launder bribes paid to Singer "by funneling them through Singer's purported charity and his for-profit corporation." This third charge has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, supervised release of three years, and a $500,000 fine. In June 2022, the final defendant in the investigation, Amin Khoury, was acquitted at trial of bribing a Georgetown University tennis coach to get his daughter into Georgetown. Khoury was accused of delivering $180,000 in a paper bag to the tennis coach through a middleman. Khoury, who was represented by attorney Roy Black, was the only defendant in the Varsity Blues investigation to gain an acquittal.


Allegations

Federal prosecutors alleged a college-admission scheme that involved: * bribing exam administrators to facilitate
cheating Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate cr ...
on college and university entrance exams; * bribing coaches and administrators of elite universities to nominate unqualified applicants as elite recruited athletes, thus facilitating the applicants' admission; * using a
charitable organization A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definitio ...
to conceal the source and nature of laundered bribery payments. Court documents unsealed in March 2019 detail a scheme led by William Rick Singer, at the time a 58-year-old resident of Newport Beach, California. Wealthy parents paid Singer to illegally arrange to have their children admitted to elite schools by bribing admissions testing officials, athletics staff, and coaches at universities. Payments were made to Key Worldwide Foundation, a
nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
owned by Singer and previously granted
501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
status; that status allowed him to avoid federal income taxes on the payments, while parents could deduct their "donations" from their own personal taxes. Singer offered college counseling services as The Edge College & Career Network, a
limited liability company A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...
registered in 2012, which he operated out of his home in Newport Beach.


Methods of fraudulent admission

Singer primarily used two fraudulent techniques to help clients' children gain admission to elite universities: cheating on college entrance exams and fabrication of elite sports credentials.Quintana, Chris (March 12, 2019)
Fake disabilities, photoshopped faces: How feds say celebrities, coaches and scammers got kids into elite colleges
''
USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
''.


Cheating on college entrance exams

Singer arranged to allow clients' children to cheat on the
SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...
or ACT college admission tests. Singer worked with psychologists to complete the detailed paperwork required to falsely certify clients' children as having a
learning disability Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty (British English) is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficult ...
; this in turn gave them access to accommodations, such as extra time, while taking the tests. Singer said he could obtain a falsified disability report from a psychologist for $4,000 to $5,000, and that the report could be re-used to fraudulently obtain similar benefits at the schools. Once the paperwork was complete, Singer told clients to invent false travel plans to arrange to have their child's test locations moved to a test center under his control, either in
West Hollywood West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most ...
or
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
. Parents might also be advised to fabricate a family event that could provide a pretense for the student to take the SAT, ACT, or other test at a private location where Singer could have complete control over the testing process. In some cases, the student was involved directly in the fraud. In others, the fraud was kept secret from the student and corrupt proctors altered tests on their behalf after the fact. In some cases, other people posed as the students to take the tests. Mark Riddell, a
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
alumnus and college admission exam preparation director at
IMG Academy IMG Academy is a preparatory boarding school and sports training destination in Bradenton, Florida, United States. IMG Academy is set across over 600 acres and features programs consisting of sport camps for youth athletes, adult camps, a board ...
, was one of the stand-in test takers who took over two dozen exams; he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit
mail fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activit ...
and honest services mail fraud and one count of money laundering, and agreed to cooperate with investigators. Prosecutors said he was paid $10,000 per test, and the government was seeking to recover almost $450,000 from him in forfeiture. Riddell did not have advance access to the test papers, but was described as "just a really smart guy". He could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, but reportedly prosecutors said that because of his cooperation they would instead likely recommend 33 months' imprisonment at his November 1, 2019 (originally July 18) sentencing hearing. According to recorded phone calls, the transcripts of which were included in court filings, Singer claimed that the practice of fraudulently obtaining accommodations such as extra testing time, intended for those with legitimate learning disabilities, was widespread outside of his particular scheme: For example, Jane Buckingham was arrested on March 12, 2019, for allegedly submitting false paperwork saying her son had a learning disability; and paying $50,000 to Key Worldwide Foundation for a proctor to take the ACT on her son's behalf, scoring a 35 out of 36. The goal was entrance to the University of Southern California (USC). Portions of recorded conversations between Buckingham and a cooperating witness were included in the FBI's affidavit.


Fabrication of sports credentials

Singer also bribed college athletics staff and coaches. At certain colleges, these personnel can submit a certain number of sports recruit names to the admissions office, which then views those applications more favorably. Singer used his Key Worldwide Foundation as a money-laundering operation to pay coaches a bribe for labeling applicants as athletic recruits. He also fabricated profiles highlighting each applicant's purported athletic prowess. In some cases,
image editing software In computer graphics, graphics software refers to a program or collection of programs that enable a person to manipulate images or models visually on a computer. Computer graphics can be classified into two distinct categories: raster graphics a ...
(e.g.,
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...
) was used to insert a photograph of a student's face onto a photograph of another person participating in the sport to document purported athletic activity. In one such incident, Michael Center, the men's tennis coach at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
(UT), accepted about $100,000 to designate an applicant as a recruit for the
Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and a ...
tennis team. A similar fraud occurred at Yale, where the then-head coach of the women's soccer team, Rudolph "Rudy" Meredith, allegedly accepted a $450,000 bribe to falsely identify an applicant as a recruit. USC's senior associate athletic director Donna Heinel and water polo coach
Jovan Vavic Jovan Vavic (born ) is the former head coach of both the University of Southern California (USC) men's and women's water polo teams. In 2012, he was interim head coach of the United States men's national water polo team. While coaching USC he won ...
allegedly received $1.3million and $250,000, respectively, for similar frauds. They were indicted alongside former USC women's soccer coaches Ali Khosroshahin and Laura Janke. Coaches at two other
Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
programs,
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
(UCLA) men's soccer coach Jorge Salcedo and
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
sailing coach John Vandemoer, were charged with accepting bribes. Vandemoer admitted that he accepted $270,000 to classify two applicants as prospective sailors, and agreed to plead guilty to a charge of racketeering conspiracy. At Wake Forest, head volleyball coach William "Bill" Ferguson was placed on
administrative leave Administrative leave is a temporary leave from a job assignment, with pay and benefits intact. Generally, the term is reserved for employees of non-business institutions such as schools, police, and hospitals. The definition of administrative leav ...
following charges of
racketeering Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and of ...
. Former
Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
tennis coach Gordon "Gordie" Ernst is alleged to have facilitated as many as 12 students through fraudulent means while accepting bribes of up to $950,000. On March 20, 2019, the
University of San Diego The University of San Diego (USD) is a private Roman Catholic research university in San Diego, California. Chartered in July 1949 as the independent San Diego College for Women and San Diego University (comprising the College for Men and Schoo ...
(USD) revealed that its former men's basketball head coach Lamont Smith allegedly accepted bribes. Hours after that revelation, Smith resigned from his position as assistant coach at the
University of Texas at El Paso The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public research university in El Paso, Texas. It is a member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the United States to have a majority Mexican American stud ...
. Two San Diego families were accused of paying $875,000 as part of the scheme. Bill McGlashan, a
private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
investor, allegedly discussed using Adobe Photoshop to create a fake profile for his son as a football kicker to help him get into USC. Similarly, Marci Palatella, wife of former
San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...
player Lou Palatella, allegedly conspired with Singer to pass her son off as a
long snapper In American football, the long snapper (or deep snapper) is a center on special teams whose duty is to snap the football over a longer distance, typically around 15 yards during punts, and 7–8 yards during field goals and extra point attempt ...
recruit for USC. In one of the most notable cases, actress Lori Loughlin, famous for her role on the American sitcom ''
Full House ''Full House'' is an American television sitcom created by Jeff Franklin for ABC. The show is about widowed father Danny Tanner who enlists his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis and childhood best friend Joey Gladstone to help raise his three dau ...
'' and the drama ''
When Calls the Heart ''When Calls the Heart'' is an American television drama series, inspired by Janette Oke's book of the same name from her ''Canadian West series'', and developed by Michael Landon Jr. The series began airing on the Hallmark Channel in the Uni ...
'', and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli of
Mossimo Mossimo is a sportswear and accessories American company, founded in 1986 by designer Mossimo Giannulli and owned by Iconix Brand Group since 2006. Mossimo specializes in youth and teenage clothing such as shirts, jeans, jackets, socks, underwe ...
fashion, allegedly paid $500,000 in bribes to arrange to have their two daughters accepted into USC as members of the rowing team, although neither girl had participated in the sport. On March 13, 2019, media sources reported that, when news of the scandal broke, Loughlin's younger daughter was on
Rick Caruso Rick Joseph Caruso (born January 7, 1959) is an American businessman. A billionaire, he is the founder and former chief executive officer of Caruso, an American real-estate company. He is the chair of the board of trustees at the University o ...
's
yacht A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a , such a pleasu ...
in
the Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...
with her friend, Gianna, Caruso's daughter. Caruso is the
chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
of the USC
Board of Trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
. Singer pleaded guilty on March 12, 2019, in the U.S. District Court in Boston to four felony counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and
obstruction of justice Obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, is an act that involves unduly influencing, impeding, or otherwise interfering with the justice system, especially the legal and procedural tasks of prosecutors, investigators, or other gov ...
for alerting a number of subjects to the investigation after he began cooperating with the government. He faces up to 65 years in prison and a fine of $1.25million.


Involved parties and organizations

A total of 50 people have been charged in the investigations. This number includes 33 parents of college applicants and 11 named collegiate coaches or athletic administrators from eight universities. Numerous other universities were not implicated in the scandal but were themselves victims of Singer's and his clients' actions, such as by considering applications of students with fraudulent test scores.


Key Worldwide Foundation / The Edge College & Career Network

* William Rick Singer, purported college counselor, and author of self-help books for college admission. Singer organized and sold fraudulent college admission services. Singer pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution. * Mark Riddell, a Harvard alumnus and former director of college entrance exams at
IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...
Academy. Riddell was paid by Singer to fraudulently take admission tests, impersonating the clients' children; he also paid
College Board The College Board is an American nonprofit organization that was formed in December 1899 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While the College Board is not an association of colleges, it runs a ...
(which develops and administers the SAT and related tests),
Educational Testing Service Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, but has a Princeton address. ETS develops var ...
, and ACT contractors to deliberately mis-administer the tests. He was fired from IMG Academy and pleaded guilty. * Steven Masera, officer at Singer's companies. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering. * Mikaela Sanford, employee at Singer's companies. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering.


Other involved conspirators

* Igor Dvorskiy, administrator of standardized tests (including those from ACT and the College Board), and director of an LA-area private school. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering. * Martin Fox, Houston tennis academy president. Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering. Sentenced to 3 months in prison, 15 months' supervised release with 3 months' home confinement, $95,000 fine, forfeiture of $245,000 & 250 hours of community service. * Niki Williams, administrator of standardized tests for ACT and College Board, Houston-area assistant high school teacher. Pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud.


Universities and accused personnel

The following universities, their associated athletic programs, and 11 university personnel were involved in the case:


Parents

Officials said Singer had many legitimate clients, who did not engage in any fraud. Singer cited famous clients on his Facebook page while promoting his 2014 book ''Getting In'' and, as a result of this and other public endorsements by Singer, many former clients have made statements to distance themselves and their children from any perceived involvement in the scandal. The table below lists parents in connection with the nationwide college admissions prosecution as listed by
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
,
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...
, and ''
People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
''. Morrie Tobin is not included in the above total due to the fact that he is an unindicted cooperating witness supporting the prosecution's case. To date, 38 of the indicted parents have either pleaded guilty or have been convicted.


Responses

In response to the scandal, the
National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
(NCAA), the chief governing body for college sports in the United States, announced plans to review the allegations "to determine the extent to which NCAA rules may have been violated".
U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...
Ron Wyden Ronald Lee Wyden (; born May 3, 1949) is an American politician and retired educator serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from Oregon, a seat he has held since 1996 United Stat ...
( D- OR), of the
Senate Finance Committee The United States Senate Committee on Finance (or, less formally, Senate Finance Committee) is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The Committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures generall ...
, plans to sponsor a bill making donations to schools taxable if the donor has children attending or applying to the college.Hackman, Michelle (March 15, 2019)
College-Admission Scandal Draws Scrutiny in Washington
, ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''.
Separately, Senators
Chris Coons Christopher Andrew Coons (born September 9, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Delaware since 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Coons served as the county executive of New Castle Cou ...
( D- DE) and
Johnny Isakson John Hardy Isakson (December 28, 1944 – December 19, 2021) was an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2005 to 2019 as a member of the Republican Party. He represented in the United State ...
( R- GA) have agreed to reintroduce 2017 legislation that imposes a fine on colleges and universities that have the smallest proportion of low-income students. One of the parents who was convicted, Robert Zangrillo, was pardoned by President Donald Trump on his final day in office.


Extrajudicial actions

Indicted coaches were fired or suspended, or had already left the university at the time of the charges. Mark Riddell, who took tests on behalf of the students, was suspended from his position as director of college entrance exam preparation at IMG Academy and fired a week later. On March 12, 2019, William Singer, the CEO of Edge College & Career Network who masterminded the scandal, pleaded guilty to four criminal charges involving racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and obstruction of justice. The U.S. government has not yet imposed a sentence on Singer. On March 26, 2019, Yale became the first university to rescind the admission of a student associated with the scandal. On April 2, Stanford announced they also expelled a student connected to the fraud. In July 2020, Grand Canyon University ended its relationship with Singer, who was enrolled as a student of the university's psychiatric school since November 2019. Actress Felicity Huffman formally pleaded guilty to honest services fraud, which involved hiring someone to test
SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...
scores while using the name of her daughter Sophia, on May 13, 2019, and on September 13 she was sentenced to 14 days in jail, one year of supervised release, fined $30,000 and ordered to undertake 250 hours of
community service Community service is unpaid work performed by a person or group of people for the benefit and betterment of their community without any form of compensation. Community service can be distinct from volunteering, since it is not always performed ...
. On October 15, 2019, Huffman reported to the
Federal Correctional Institution The Federal Bureau of Prisons classifies prisons into seven categories: * United States penitentiaries * Federal correctional institutions * Private correctional institutions * Federal prison camps * Administrative facilities * Federal correctio ...
in Dublin, California, to begin her sentence. She was meant to be released from prison on October 27, 2019, but was released two days early because October 27 fell on a weekend. As of October 2020, when Huffman completed her full sentence, no charges had been filed against Huffman's husband and Sophia's father, actor and director
William H. Macy William Hall Macy Jr. (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor. His film career has been built on appearances in small, independent films, though he has also appeared in mainstream films. Some of his best known starring roles include those i ...
. The Hallmark Channel cut its ties to
Lori Loughlin Lori Anne Loughlin (; born July 28, 1964) is an American actress. From 1988 to 1995, she played Rebecca Donaldson Katsopolis on the ABC sitcom ''Full House'', and reprised the role for its Netflix sequel '' Fuller House'' (2016–2018). Loughlin ...
, star of the program ''Garage Sale Mystery'' and ''When Calls the Heart'', after she was named as a parent in the indictments. According to ''The Hill (newspaper), The Hill'', Netflix decided to drop Loughlin from Fuller House (TV series), ''Fuller House'' as well. Her younger daughter Olivia Jade also lost her partnerships with TRESemmé and the Sephora chain of beauty products. It was reported by TMZ, Page Six, and others that Loughlin's daughters dropped out of USC due to fears of being "viciously bullied";Lapin, Tamar (March 14, 2019)
"Lori Loughlin's daughter Drop Out of USC After Admissions Scandal"
, ''New York Post''-Page Six.
however, a USC spokesperson confirmed in March that they both remained enrolled at the school, but in October the school's registrar stated they were no longer enrolled. According to the ''San Jose Mercury News'', USC scheduled a hearing in March 2019 to determine if Olivia Jade should be designated a "disruptive individual", which would result in her lifetime ban from the university's campus and properties. Loughlin was found guilty and began serving a two-month prison sentence on October 30, 2020. Giannulli, who was also found guilty, began serving a five-month prison sentence on November 19, 2020. On September 8, 2021, the scandal's first criminal trial, which saw parents John Wilson and
Gamal Aziz Gamal Aziz, also known as Gamal Abdelaziz, (Arabic: جمال عزيز) (born ) is an Egyptian-American businessman. Aziz is the former president of Wynn Macau Limited and chief operating officer of Wynn Resorts Development. He was also the forme ...
as defendants, officially began, with jury selection commencing in a Boston federal court. This trial was centered around phony credentials which the two defendants paid to admit their children into the University of Southern California. Both men were convicted by a jury on October 8, 2021, after 10 hours of deliberation. On March 10, 2022, the first criminal trial involving a former coach, former USC water polo coach
Jovan Vavic Jovan Vavic (born ) is the former head coach of both the University of Southern California (USC) men's and women's water polo teams. In 2012, he was interim head coach of the United States men's national water polo team. While coaching USC he won ...
, got underway in the same Boston federal court as well. Vavic was the only coach implicated in the case who opted to challenge the charges brought against him in court. On April 9, 2022, a federal jury in Boston convicted Vavic of fraud and bribery. On September 15, 2022, Vavic's conviction was overturned, with Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruling that evidence presented at trial did not determine that the payments “served the defendants’ interests and harmed the university’s,” and a new trial was ordered.


Lawsuits

Multiple lawsuits were immediately filed against universities and individuals. Three students from
Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...
, Rutgers University, and a California community college filed a complaint against Singer and the affected universities that they hope will be certified as a class-action suit. A Stanford undergraduate claimed a loss for the time and money she spent applying to schools named in the scandal, as well as the possibility that the stain on Stanford's reputation would decrease the value of her degree. A parent filed a $500 billion civil suit in San Francisco against all the indicted individuals, claiming that her son was denied admission to some schools because of other parents buying access.


Related cases

In November 2020, former Harvard University fencing coach Peter Brand and Harvard parent Jie "Jack" Zhao were indicted on bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud after a series of investigative articles in ''The Boston Globe''. Although the alleged crimes are not connected to Rick Singer or the broader Varsity Blues conspiracy, the case's discovery and eventual prosecution has been credited to the increased scrutiny on admissions practices that resulted from the greater fallout of the scandal. Both defendants have denied the charges, and the trial is scheduled to begin in December 2022.


Commentary

After the scandal broke, multiple American news sources including ''The Atlantic'', ''Vox (website), Vox'', ''Rolling Stone'', and ''The New York Times'' characterized it as a symptom of a broken college admissions system. Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said it was "the worst scandal involving elite universities in the history of the United States". Elizabeth Warren, United States Senate, United States Senator from Massachusetts (where all the criminal cases were filed), told news media that the scandal represented "just one more example of how the rich and powerful know how to take care of their own". Much of the news coverage attempted to explain why anyone would have been tempted by Singer's scheme. A common attribute among the defendants was that many were rich, but not ultra high-net-worth individual, ultra-rich. According to ''The New York Times'', college admissions at certain elite American universities had become so selective that a family would have to make a minimum donation of $10million to inspire an admission committee to take a second look at their child, and even for families of such means, there would be no guarantee of return on investment, while Singer was selling certainty. In open court, he said: "I created a guarantee." The ''Los Angeles Times'' explained that there was probably also a signalling (economics), social signaling element at work, in that admission to an elite university based purely upon an applicant's apparent merit publicly validates both the child's innate talent and the parents' own parenting skills in a way that an admission coinciding with a sizable donation does not. In turn, others examined why certain universities had become so selective in the first place. ''The Atlantic'' pointed out that college seats are not scarce in the United States, except at a handful of universities which became selective on purpose: "[S]carcity has the added benefit of increasing an institution's prestige. The more students who apply, and the fewer students who get in, the more selective an institution becomes, and, subsequently, the more prestigious. And parents are clawing over one another to get a taste of the social capital that comes with that." Arizona State University (ASU) president Michael M. Crow described the "crisis of access to these social-status-granting institutions" as a full-blown "hysteria". It was alleged in court filings that one of the defendant parents had named ASU as a university they were specifically trying to avoid; the non-selective university has been the "butt of jokes" in American television shows for many years, as well as the 2015 film ''Ted 2''. The inevitable result, according to ''Newsweek'', was that the most elite institutions had created a situation in which purely meritocratic admissions had become impossible because they were already turning away too many overqualified candidates—former President of Harvard University, Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust had once said, "we could fill our class twice over with valedictorians." It was also recognized that any workable long-term solution would need to alleviate the underlying anxiety driving the crisis, either by restructuring the college admissions process or the Labor force in the United States, American labor market. ''HuffPost'' explained that such anxiety barely exists in Canada, whose four-year universities do not show such extreme disparities in selectivity and prestige, and in turn, most Canadian employers do not rigidly discriminate between job candidates based upon where they graduated. In contrast, selective American universities have evolved into gatekeepers for the highest echelons of certain socially prestigious and financially lucrative industries like attorneys in the United States, law and financial services in the United States, finance. University of Oklahoma history professor Wilfred M. McClay told ''Newsweek'': "I'm not going to pretend there isn't a difference between Harvard and Suffolk County Community College, but I think this situation where the Supreme Court of the United States, Supreme Court is made up entirely of Harvard Law School, Harvard or Yale Law School graduates is wrong. The thing driving the current scandal seems to be that ultimately parents were willing to do anything to game the system to get their kids these advantages, not because the education was better but because the legitimation of social position would be better." Writing for ''The Washington Post'', psychologists Jonathan Wai, Matt Brown and Christopher Chabris cited research on the SAT#Predictive validity and powers, predictive powers of the SAT and the doubtful value of costly SAT#Preparation, SAT preparation programs, and concluded, "If the SAT were nothing but a wealth test, then Lori Loughlin, Mossimo Giannulli and other super-rich parents would not have had to cheat to get their kids into the latter two schools. In reality, they had to fake intellectual ability—the one thing they could not buy."


Documentaries and adaptation

In 2019, Lifetime (TV network), Lifetime produced and broadcast a television film about this event called ''The College Admissions Scandal''. The film stars Penelope Ann Miller as Caroline DeVere, Mia Kirshner as Bethany Slade, and Michael Shanks as Rick Singer. In 2019, Lifetime also released a documentary called ''Beyond the Headlines: The College Admissions Scandal'' with Gretchen Carlson. On April 4, 2019, three weeks after Operation Varsity Blues' charges were made public, Granite Bay High School debuted ''Ranked (musical), Ranked'', a new musical. The show, written from 2018 to 2019 by the school's drama teacher and musical director, focused on academic pressure in schools, specifically telling the story of a student whose parents were paying for his grades without his knowledge. The timing of the musical's debut in relation to the scandal was serendipitous, and earned the high school national attention. Rick Singer worked in the Granite Bay, California, Granite Bay community a decade prior as a college coach for local high school students. A fictionalized account of the events was in the book ''Admissions'' by Julie Buxbaum, released on December 1, 2020. It tells the story from the point of view of the child of a fictional actress who was charged. Netflix released a documentary on the subject, ''Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal'', in 2021, mostly focusing on Singer, played by Matthew Modine. In 2021, Casey Lyons and Caroline Miller wrote and self-produced ''Bars of Ivy: The College Admissions Scandal Musical'' about the scandal from the perspective of a student affected by it.


See also

* National Association for College Admission Counseling * University of Bristol admissions controversy * University of Illinois clout scandal * University of Texas at Austin admissions controversy * Legacy preferences


Notes

* The one exception to Professor McClay's statement (at the time it was made in 2019) was that Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had attended Harvard for her first two years of law school but did not graduate from Harvard. After her husband found a job in New York City, Dean Erwin Griswold denied Ginsburg's request to earn credit at Columbia Law School towards her Harvard law degree. Ginsburg stayed with her husband, formally transferred to Columbia for her third year of law school, and earned her law degree from Columbia.


References


External links


Investigations of College Admissions and Testing Bribery Scheme
United States Department of Justice – contains charging documents and case status of all defendants criminally implicated in the scandal * District Court dockets: *
''United States v. Abbott, et al.'', No. 1:19-mj-06087 (D. Mass.)
*
''United States v. Sidoo, et al.'', No. 1:19-cr-10080 (D. Mass.)
*
''In re Operation Varsity Blues Prosecution'', No. 1:19-mc-91134 (D. Mass.)

The Key Worldwide Foundation website
archived {{Portal bar, Law, United States 2019 controversies in the United States 2019 in American law Academic scandals Bribery scandals Cheating in school Corruption in the United States Fraud in the United States Georgetown University Harvard University Honest services fraud Mail and wire fraud March 2019 events in the United States Northwestern University Scandals in the United States Stanford University University and college admissions University of California, Berkeley University of California, Los Angeles University of San Diego University of Southern California University of Texas at Austin Wake Forest University Yale University