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HOUSTON – Two Houston residents are linked to what prosecutors describe as a ploy for cheating on college entrance exams or offering bribes to admission.
According to a newly indicted indictment, Lisa "Niki" Williams, assistant professor at a public high school in Houston, has been named an accused.
Williams, 44, is also a director of the College Board and ACT.
Another named defendant is Martin Fox, president of a private tennis academy and camp in Houston.
Fox, 62, and Williams are charged with racket conspiracy.
READ: List of people involved in college admissions and corruption tests
Houston FBI agents arrested Williams and Fox early Tuesday morning.
KPRC2 got a surveillance video of the arrest. In the video, we hear agents yelling "FBI! Mandate!"
The video captures the arrest of a Houston resident
Both appeared in federal court on Tuesday afternoon.
A judge told Williams not to interact with co-defendants. She told a judge that she was not currently monitoring any tests and the judge stated that she was not allowed to do so during the trial.
Bond for Williams was set at $ 20,000. She was seen leaving the courthouse Tuesday afternoon.
Fox was held on $ 50,000 bail after prosecutors became concerned about the risk of absconding.
Williams and Fox are scheduled to appear in court on March 25.
READ the complete indictment here
According to court documents, Williams allegedly accepted bribes from the accused leader, William "Rick" Singer, who had founded The Edge College & Career Network, also known as The Key, and The Key Worldwide Foundation. .
"Between about 2011 and 2018, wealthy parents paid Singer about $ 25 million in total to guarantee their children entry into elite schools," said US attorney Andrew Lelling.
Singer is accused of asking parents to claim that their children claim to have learning difficulties to obtain medical documents that allow students more time to write the exams.
"To facilitate the scam, Singer advised parents to take their children to a therapist and receive a letter saying that, because of alleged learning disabilities or other problems, the child needed more time to complete the ACT or SAT.Sings had been granted, Singer arranged for the child to pass the exam individually with one of the administrators who 'he had bought either in Houston or California,' said Lelling.
According to the court documents, parents would pay Singer between $ 15,000 and $ 75,000 for another person, usually a Palmetto resident in Florida, named after Mark Riddell, to take exams for students or replace their answers by his.
VIDEO: Federal Investigators Discuss Williams' Relationship to Cheating Scandal
According to the indictment, Singer allegedly paid money to Williams, who had administered the exams in a public high school in Houston.
Fox is accused of channeling money from Singer to Williams. However, Singer also paid $ 5,000 directly to Williams in one case in July 2018, according to court documents.
According to the indictment, Singer would then pay $ 10,000 per test to Riddell.
The universities involved include the University of Texas at Austin, Wake Forest University, Yale University, Georgetown University, Stanford University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and the University of San Diego.
VIDEO: Federal prosecutors discuss UT connection to cheating scandal
In 2015, Fox introduced Singer to a tennis coach at the University of Tennessee in order to admit him as a student by paying him $ 100,000 and Fox, $ 100,000, according to the 39, indictment.
The student did not play tennis competitively, yet he was a rookie for the UT tennis team and had been admitted, according to the court records.
Actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were among the parents accused of bribing their children at the aforementioned universities.
John Wilson, from Hyannis Port in Massachsetts, was also arrested by Houston FBI agents in Houston on Tuesday and appeared in federal court. Prosecutors were looking for a $ 1 million guarantee guarantee because of its close ties with Europe. They did not know why Wilson was in Houston.
Wilson, 59, is the founder and CEO of a private equity and real estate development company.
Copyright 2019 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
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