Dozens indicted in US college admissions conspiracy

The US Attorney’s Office of Massachusetts on Tuesday unsealed documents related to a federal investigation into a large-scale college admissions and testing bribery scheme.

The conspiracy involved a network of “athletic coaches from Yale, Stanford, USC, Wake Forest and Georgetown … as well as parents and exam administrators.” These defendants were linked through an enterprise called The Edge College & Career Network, which was a for-profit college preparatory service founded in 2007 by William Singer. Singer used a purported charity, The Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF), to funnel approximately $25 million in payments from his racketeering scheme. This racketeering scheme was two-fold: cheating college admissions exams and falsely claiming athletic recruitment.

To cheat on standardized tests, Singer bribed third-party actors who would either secretly take college entrance exams on behalf of actual students or correct students’ answers immediately after the exam. Parents would pay between $15,000 and $75,000 per test for these services.

When it came time to submit applications to universities, parents would contact Singer to arrange for fake athlete backstories. These stories were presented to admissions committees by the universities’ own coaches. In one of these arrangements, Singer’s client paid him $1.2 million for an elite soccer story that resulted in an admission to Yale.

Singer has pleaded guilty to racketeering, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the US and obstruction of justice. His accomplices face an array of racketeering and wire fraud charges, while dozens of his clients have been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. Among those clients are CEOs, venture capitalists, lawyers, and well-known actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.

Source: Jurist