Varsity Blues: First parents stand trial in college admissions bribery scandal

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo Finance

Varsity Blues: First parents stand trial in college admissions bribery scandal

Aarthi Swaminathan and Alexis Keenan
Wed, September 8, 2021, 11:30 AM · 7 min read

Two parents are set to face trial starting Wednesday over their alleged participation in a widespread criminal scheme to fraudulently secure college admissions for their children.

In 2019, the Justice Department announced charges related to an alleged conspiracy that involved parents of aspiring undergraduate students collectively paying more than $25 million to a middleman who secured student-athlete placements at highly selective U.S. universities including Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, and Yale. Several high-profile parents involved in the scheme pleaded guilty and served time in prison.

Gamal Abdelaziz, a former casino executive, and John Wilson, former chief operating officer for Gap. Inc., are among 57 people charged by U.S. attorneys and are the first to stand trial, following an FBI investigation into a network that allegedly doled out coveted spots to attend U.S. universities in exchange for payments to gatekeepers who circumvented admission procedures.

“I'm not shocked that they went to trial,” Ashwin Ram, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, told Yahoo Finance. “And frankly, they have a real shot, just like anybody who stands before a jury has a real shot, of having a jury, or a single juror holdout, or maybe of convincing the jury that they were defrauded.”

The investigation, dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues,” led to the arrest and prosecution of high-profile parents, university employees, and advisers. So far, 30 parents involved in the scheme have entered guilty pleas, along with its admitted ringleader, college counselor William “Rick” Singer.

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Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/varsity-blues-trial-parents-153003733.html

[Irish_Dem]

1. If you are rich enough to bribe colleges, you are rich enough to hire a high powered attorney.

And hire a PR team to make you look sympathetic.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

2. +1...

... yep, and your ego should force you to pay any cost to, "prove", you had a right to cheat your kids and everybody else's kids, too.

[left-of-center2012]

3. Haven't some parents already gone to prison for this?

Did they confess and 'broker' a deal instead of going to trial?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Must be. I was confused when I saw this article. I thought, "hasn't this already happened?"

In the earlier cases, the defendants must have pled out.

Thanks for writing.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Are you thinking of the Hollywood ones - Lori Loughlin & Felicity Huffman

who did serve time last year for their transgressions?

Lori Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade breaks silence on college admissions scandal: 'We messed up'

The 21-year-old social media star opened up on Red Table Talk.
By Rosy Cordero


It was Olivia Jade Giannulli's turn to sit at the table on Red Table Talk, where she opened up for the first time about the college admissions scandal that rocked Hollywood.

Giannulli's mom, Full House star Lori Loughlin, is currently serving a two-month federal prison sentence for conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud to influence the admission for Olivia and her sister, Isabella Rose Giannulli, into the University of Southern California by way of bribery. Her fashion designer father, Mossimo Giannulli, is serving a five-month sentence for the same crime.

https://ew.com/tv/lori-loughlin-daughter-olivia-jade-breaks-silence-college-admissions-scandal/

Felicity Huffman has completed her full sentence for college admissions scandal

By Rachel Yang


Felicity Huffman has completed her full sentence for her involvement in the college admissions scandal. As of Sunday, she has finished her sentence, which included jail time, community service, and supervised release, a source close to the family confirmed to EW. In May, Huffman pleaded guilty to paying a college admissions consultant $15,000 to have a proctor change her daughter Sophia's answers after she took the SAT.

Huffman served 11 of her 14-day jail sentence and was released last October. She was also sentenced to 250 hours of community service and was on supervised release for one year. Huffman was one of many wealthy parents, also including Full House star Lori Loughlin, caught up in the “Operation Varsity Blues” investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts in 2019.

According to court documents, Huffman agreed to pay William Rick Singer, whose Key Worldwide Foundation hired various people to take tests on behalf of students who had falsified medical forms saying they needed extra time to take their ACT/SAT tests individually. Huffman's husband, actor William H. Macy, was not indicted in the investigation.

At her sentencing hearing in September, Huffman said after her arrest, her daughter Sophia told her, “'I don’t know who you are anymore.' I could only say, ‘I am so sorry, Sophia. I was frightened. I was stupid and I was so wrong.’”After Judge Indira Talwani sentenced her to 14 days, Huffman said in a statement, “I accept the court’s decision today without reservation…I broke the law. I admitted that and I pleaded guilty to this crime. There are no excuses or justifications for my actions. Period.”

https://ew.com/celebrity/felicity-huffman-completed-full-sentence-college-admissions-scandal/

Couldn't find a date on those links but other links are dating the "Red Table Talk" interview happening last November so I think their court drama was going on a year ago.

The scheme was apparently wide-spread so I suppose the other "less well-known" who were engaged in it are getting their day in court now.

[R Merm]

5. Students who committed to the schools involved, and lost their scholarships were some of the big

losers in this nonsense.

My daughter had a friend who committed to USC and had his scholarship canceled along with every incoming student. He was a talented athlete who worked hard for his spot, who lost out because a few greedy coaches.