Once they were accepted, many of these students didn’t play the sports in which they supposedly excelled. He did not elaborate.Īuthorities said coaches in such sports as soccer, sailing, tennis, water polo and volleyball took payoffs to put students on lists of recruited athletes, regardless of their ability or experience. The investigation began when authorities received a tip about the scheme from someone they were interviewing in a separate case, Lelling said. The colleges themselves are not targets, the prosecutor said.
The IRS is also investigating, since some parents allegedly disguised the bribes as charitable donations. Lelling said the investigation is continuing and authorities believe other parents were involved. Several defendants, including Huffman, were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. “For every student admitted through fraud, an honest and genuinely talented student was rejected,” Lelling said. Some parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and some as much as $6.5 million to guarantee their children’s admission, officials said. The consultant also hired ringers to take college entrance exams for students, and paid off insiders at testing centers to correct students’ answers. Prosecutors said that parents paid Singer big money from 2011 through last month to bribe coaches and administrators to falsely make their children look like star athletes to boost their chances of getting accepted. Singer’s lawyer, Donald Heller, said his client intends to cooperate fully with prosecutors and is “remorseful and contrite and wants to move on with his life.” He pleaded guilty, as did Stanford’s John Vandemoer. The central figure in the scheme was identified as admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer, founder of the Edge College & Career Network of Newport Beach, California.
“This was shopping for name-brand product and being willing to spend whatever it took.” “This story is the proof that there will always be a market for parents who have the resources and are desperate to get their kid one more success,” said Mark Sklarow, CEO of the Independent Educational Consultants Association. The scandal is certain to inflame longstanding complaints that children of the wealthy and well-connected have the inside track in college admissions - sometimes through big, timely donations from their parents - and that privilege begets privilege.Ĭollege consultants were not exactly shocked by the allegations. Several of the colleges involved made no mention of taking any action against the students. No students were charged, with authorities saying that in many cases the teenagers were unaware of what was going on.
#Gordon caplan willkie farr linkedin tv#
TV celebrities and coaches charged in college bribery scheme