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BRIBER SCANDAL ADMISSIONS BRIBERY
OFFICE ADMISSIONS BRIBERY SCANDAL
Photo: Steven Senne, Associate Press
photo: Steven Senne, Associated Press
BRIBERY SCANDAL ADMISSIONS COLLEGE
BRIBER SCANDAL BRIBERY ADMISSIONS
Photo: Steven Senne, Associated Press
Actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin among dozens of people charged with university admissions
Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were Charged on Tuesday as part of a ploy in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders with their children in some of the country's most selective schools.
The federal authorities have described it as the biggest college fraud ever prosecuted by the US Department of Justice, with parents being accused of paying about $ 25 million. dollars in bribes.
At least nine sports coaches and 33 parents, many of whom are prominent in the fields of law, finance, fashion, food and beverage, have been charged. Dozens of people, including Huffman, the star of "Desperate Housewives" on ABC, were arrested at noon.
"These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege," said American lawyer Andrew Lelling in announcing the results of a fraud and investigation into a conspiracy called Operation Varsity Blues
Coaches worked in schools such as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles. A former Yale football coach pleaded guilty and helped defend others against him.
Two other accused – Stanford's sailing coach and college admissions consultant, located at the center of the ploy – pleaded guilty Tuesday in Boston. Others appeared in court and were released on bail.
No students were charged. The authorities claimed that in many cases, the teenagers were not aware of what was going on. Many of the colleges involved have made no mention of taking action against students.
The scandal will certainly ignite long-standing claims that the children of the rich and those with social ties have the basis of the college admission process – sometimes through large, one-time donations. of their parents – and this privilege breeds privilege.
The allegations did not shock the college consultants.
"This story is proof that there will always be a market for parents who have the resources and are desperate – their child still a success," said Mark Sklarow, CEO of the Independent Educational Consultants Association. "It was buying a branded product and being ready to spend what it needed."
The central figure of this project has been identified as Admission Consultant William "Rick" Singer, founder of the Edge College & Career Network of Newport Beach. , California. He pleaded guilty, as did John Vandemoer of Stanford.
Singer's lawyer, Donald Heller, said that his client had the intention to cooperate fully with prosecutors and that he was "upset, contrite and wants to continue living." Parents paid a lot of money to Singer from 2011 last month to entice coaches and administrators to falsely give their kids the appearance of star athletes to increase their chances of winning. to be accepted. The consultant also hired runners to take college entrance exams and pay insiders from test centers to correct student responses.
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Some parents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and others as much
"For every student admitted by fraud, an honest and truly talented student was rejected," said Lelling.
Several accused, including Huffman, were charged with conspiracy to commit the crime. fraud, punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment.
Lelling stated that the investigation was continuing and that the authorities felt that other parents were involved. The IRS is also investigating, with some parents apparently disguising bribes as charitable donations. The colleges themselves are not targets, said the prosecutor.
The investigation began when authorities were informed of the scheme by an interviewee in another case, Lelling said.
Authorities reported that coaches in sports such as football, sailing, tennis, water polo, and volleyball were rewarded for students to be placed on athlete lists. recruited, regardless of their abilities and experience. Once accepted, many of these students no longer practiced the sports in which they were supposed to excel.
The applicants' references in the field of sport were falsified with staged photographs showing their sport or falsified photographs on which their faces were represented. According to the authorities, prosecutors were also asked to indicate to their children that their children had learning difficulties to be able to take themselves ACT or SAT and have more time. Prosecutors said it facilitated attempts to falsify.
Gordon Caplan of Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the alleged parents, is the co-chair of New York-based international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He and the other parents did not immediately return telephone messages or emails for comment.
Here is a list of all accused
Caplan was charged with paying $ 75,000 to have a test supervisor corrected. the ACT exam answers to his daughter after having taken. During a conversation last June with a witness, he was informed that his daughter had to be "stupid" when a psychologist had badessed him for learning disabilities that would give him more of time to pbad the test, according to court documents.
The witness described the scheme as "running at home".
"And it works?" Caplan asked.
"Every time," replied the witness, causing the laughter of both.
A number of colleges quickly decided to pull or suspend coaches and distance themselves from the scandal, posing as victims. Stanford has fired his sailing coach and USC has left his water polo coach and a sports administrator. UCLA suspended his football coach and Wake Forest did the same with his volleyball coach.
Loughlin, accused of her husband, the fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, appeared in the sitcom ABC "Full House" in the 1980s and 90s. Huffman was nominated for an Oscar for playing a transgender woman in the 2005 movie "Transamerica." She also starred in the TV show "Sports Night" and appeared in films such as "Reversal of Fortune "," Magnolia "and" The Spanish prisoner ".
Loughlin and her husband reportedly donated $ 500,000 for their two daughters to be tagged As USC team recruits, their daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli, 19, a social media star with a popular channel on YouTube, is now at the USC.
Court documents revealed that Huffman paid $ 15,000 that she disguised as a charitable donation so that her daughter could take part in the fraud scam at the exam. # 39; entry.
According to court records, a witness who attended a meeting met with Huffman and her husband, actor William H. Macy, in Los Angeles. at their home and explained to them that he "controlled" a test center and that he could ask someone to secretly change his daughter's answers. This person told the investigators that the couple had accepted the plan.
Macy was not charged, the authorities did not explain why. [19659015] The Sofia, her daughter, is an aspiring actress who attends Los Angeles High School of the Arts.
Messages soliciting comments from the Huffman representative were not immediately returned. A spokeswoman for Loughlin did not comment.
In another case, a young woman entered Yale in exchange for $ 1.2 million from the family, prosecutors said. A fake sports profile created for the student indicated that she was part of the National Junior Football Team for the development of China.
Prosecutors said that Yale's coach, Rudolph Meredith, had received $ 400,000 even though he knew that the student was not playing competitive football.
The independent education consultant, Sklarow, says the scandal "attests to the fact that the process of admission is broken".
"It's so scary, especially in elite schools," he said, "I think it's no wonder that millionaires who do not want to do it," he said. probably never said no to their children trying to play the system to get their child accepted. "
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