44 Indictments On College Bribery Case

[Not A Serious Person]

Will this lead to sweeping changes in the recruitment of athletes to non-revenue sports?

 

Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin indicted in case alleging bribery to get kids into colleges
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2019/03/12/felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-indicted-admissions-bribery-case-reports/3139204002/

Federal authorities charged college coaches and others, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, in a sweeping admissions bribery case in federal court Tuesday.

The racketeering conspiracy charges were unsealed Tuesday against the coaches at elite schools including Wake Forest University, Georgetown and the University of Southern California.

Prosecutors say parents paid an admissions consultant $25 million from 2011 through Feb. 2019 to bribe coaches and administrators to label their children as recruited athletes to boost their chances of getting into schools.

Prosecutors allege that fake athletic profiles were also made to make students look like strong high school athletes when they actually weren't.

Authorities say the consulting company also bribed administrators of college entrance exams to allow a Florida man to take the tests on behalf of students or replace their answers with his.

[Not A Serious Person]

Looks like they also turned Derek Rose path to Memphis into a full-time business.


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-uncover-massive-college-entrance-exam-cheating-plot-n982136

The plot involved students who attended or were seeking to attend Georgetown University, Stanford University, UCLA, the University of San Diego, USC, University of Texas, Wake Forest, and Yale, according to federal prosecutors.

There's no indication that the schools were involved in any of the wrong-doing.

In all, 44 people, some of them college coaches, have been charged thus far.

Prosecutors said the scheme was masterminded by William Rick Singer, the founder of a for-profit college preparation business based in Newport Beach, California.

Parents paid Singer between $15,000 and $75,000 per test for someone else to take the SAT or ACT exams in place of their college-aged sons or daughters, according to the court papers.

Singer facilitated the cheating by advising students to seek "extended time on the exams, including by having their children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain medical documentation that ACT," the indictment says.

Prosecutors said Singer used the cash to bribe two people who administered the exams — Igor Dvorsiky, of Los Angeles, and Lisa "Niki" Williams, of Houston.

Dvorsiky and Williams, in exchange for receiving the payments, allowed Mark Riddell, a Florida man hired by Singer, to secretly take the tests or to replace the children’s answers with his own, according to the indictment.

Riddell was paid roughly $10,000 per test, money that was often funneled through a charity account set up by Singer, the indictment says.

[Not A Serious Person]

Wow ... this is not going to play well!


https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/12/felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-arrested-college-admissions-bribery-scam/

We've learned Felicity has been arrested and is presently in custody. We're told she will be released on a signature bond ... which essentially is a promise to appear in court. 

As for Loughlin, she and her husband -- Mossimo Giannulli, the founder of Mossimo clothing -- allegedly paid $500,000 to have their 2 daughters designated as recruits for the crew team at USC ... despite the fact they did not actually participate in crew. However, the feds say Mossimo sent action photos of their daughters on rowing machines. Mossimo was also charged in the indictment.

As for Huffman, she and her husband, William H. Macy, allegedly made a charitable contribution of $15,000 to participate in a college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of their eldest daughter.  The indictment says the daughter was given twice the amount of time to take the SAT as other students and the paid proctor agreed to secretly correct her answers afterwards.

The indictment says the girl received a score of 1420 on her SAT ... an improvement of approximately 400 points over her PSAT.

Macy was not indicted.

[jesmu84]

1%ers at it again!

[4everwarriors]

Hard to be a 1 percenter. Outta try it sumtyme, hey?

[jesmu84]

Oh, and the payments were tax-deductible. Nice

[Not A Serious Person]

Prior to WW2, there was essentially no such thing as an "application" with qualifications to get into college.  You could pretty much go anywhere as long as you had the money.

Back then colleges had enormous freshman classes for english, math, etc.  So, getting into Harvard was easy, just go the Cambridge with a check.  However, once in, getting through the Freshman classes and staying in Harvard was very hard.  They washed out a lot of kids.

So prior to WW2, easy to get in, hard to finish with a degree.

Today, impossible to get in, 99% that get in get a degree.

Seems like we need a balance between the two schemes.

[jesmu84]

Lori Loughlin's daughter:

https://twitter.com/g_bluestone/status/1105488137915154432?s=19

[Not A Serious Person]

Also indicted was for taking bribes to take kids as recruited athletes were they were not ....

• Admissions Counselor at Stanford
• Sailing Coach at Stanford
• The former Men's and Women's tennis coach at Georgetown
• Associate Athletic Director of USC
• Women's Soccer Coach, and Assistant Coach at USC
• Water Polo Coach at USC
• Men's Soccer Coach at UCLA
• Women's Volleyball Coach at Wake Forest
• Women's Soccer coach at Yale
• Tennis coach at UT-Austin

[Pakuni]

Felicity Huffman
@FelicityHuffman

What are your best “hacks” for the back-to-school season?
2:10pm · 25 Aug 2016

[tower912]

I read this title and keep thinking of the song '88 lines about 44 women.'

[warriorchick]

Never mind all that, what's Disco Hippie's take?

[Cheeks]

Never mind all that, what's Disco Hippie's take?

Let me log in as him in a few minutes and I will give you his take.

[warriorchick]

Let me log in as him in a few minutes and I will give you his take.

No worries, Cheeks.  We all know you love Marquette too much to disparage it as much as D.H. does.

[Cheeks]

No worries, Cheeks.  We all know you love Marquette too much to disparage it as much as D.H. does.

This is true, I do love the university to the core....but have plenty of concerns, too. 

[Herman Cain]

Prior to WW2, there was essentially no such thing as an "application" with qualifications to get into college.  You could pretty much go anywhere as long as you had the money.

Back then colleges had enormous freshman classes for english, math, etc.  So, getting into Harvard was easy, just go the Cambridge with a check.  However, once in, getting through the Freshman classes and staying in Harvard was very hard.  They washed out a lot of kids.

So prior to WW2, easy to get in, hard to finish with a degree.

Today, impossible to get in, 99% that get in get a degree.

Seems like we need a balance between the two schemes.

Glad that you pointed out the old way they did admissions. I am not sure many people today know that was the way things were done.

[mudeltaforcegurl]

This story is disgusting. It makes me sick.

[MU82]

nm

[Disco Hippie]

No worries, Cheeks.  We all know you love Marquette too much to disparage it as much as D.H. does.

My take is that I find this story as disturbing and abhorrent as everyone else.  Why anyone would think otherwise is offensive to me, and instead of disparaging my alma mater, I have gone out of my way to evangelize the value of a Marquette education to high school Jr's and Seniors in my community, served as mentor for the last 12 years to current students in both the Business and Comm schools, and consistently made modest donations to the extent I can afford. Not enough for them to take me seriously but given only something like 8% of alums apparently have ever donated a cent according to Marquette, the fact that I do firmly places me on the list of alums who actually care, which I know all Scoopers do as well.   I still think MU's 89% acceptance rate, which is what it was last year  is problematic, and although I may be one of the few Scoopers that feel this way, I am hardly the only alum with that POV.   

I know this because multiple admissions counselors as well as a high ranking administrator have told me personally that MU has received "significant" push back on this issue not just from alums, but more importantly from current students, who they value the opinion of even more, since they changed their enrollment strategy.  Thankfully they are taking steps to correct it, but at the end of the day MU is never going to be an elite school and I'm totally fine with that.

All I've ever said was that the difference in perception between a school that accepts 68% of applicants versus 90% is substantial, and that single statistic is in many cases, discouraging, instead of encouraging exactly the types of high performing students that Marquette claims to want to enroll more of from even applying there.   

Whether or not it should is certainly a valid question, and even I will acknowledge that it probably shouldn't, but as long as enough people think it still does, Marquette can't just dismiss it out of hand.  At the end of the day, brand matters, and not just to the super rich either.

Would it be such a bad thing if Marquette were the type of school where parents and their high school senior kids are willing to go to great (legal and non criminal) lengths to have a shot at going there?  I can't imagine why anyone that cares about Marquette would think so, but perfectly content that it isn't.

[warriorchick]

Would it be such a bad thing if Marquette were the type of school where parents and their high school senior kids are willing to go to great (legal and non criminal) lengths to have a shot at going there? 

There are indeed a great number of families who go to great lengths to go to school at Marquette.  But they aren't necessarily the types of folks you think Marquette should be interested in attracting.

[Disco Hippie]

There are indeed a great number of families who go to great lengths to go to school at Marquette.  But they aren't necessarily the types of folks you think Marquette should be interested in attracting.

Your first sentence is absolutely right!  Just not your second.  I fully acknowledge the great lengths and substantial financial sacrifices most families need to make to put even one kid through college, let alone several and not just at expensive private schools but even more so for state universities in which they're residents of.  I get it, but this thread isn't about paying, it's about getting in in the first place.

I applaud MU's diversity efforts and think they need to continue doing everything they possibly can to make higher education more accessible and affordable to prospective students from lower income families that are the first in their families to even go to college.  I want them to enroll MORE of these students, not less.  What I reject is the notion that just because these students happen to be from low income families, that they're happy to just go to any college, and that the brand doesn't matter to them.  It absolutely does, at least as much, if not more to these types of students than your garden variety upper middle class punk.  Don't get me wrong, I still want MU to be attractive to UMC punks as well, and I fully acknowledge there are lot more of the latter than the former in my community but I'll never say we don't need much more of the former. 

[Dr. Blackheart]

And here come the lawsuits....

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-others-020601281.html

[MU82]

And here come the lawsuits....

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-others-020601281.html

Good!

[StillAWarrior]

Good!

Not good.  It's stupid and a waste of time.  It's never been a secret that there are exceptions made for athletes in the admissions process.  The fact that some of these exceptions that have historically been set aside for athletes were used for non-athletes doesn't harm other applicants.  Now, I suppose a rower who applied to USC (or a tennis player at Georgetown, etc.) might have a legitimate beef, but the average applicant wasn't affected by this at all.  If they weren't suing last week because rowers were getting an advantage, there's no reason to be suing this week because some actress's kid took one of the slots that have been reserved for rowers for years.  And the same thing goes for the "it cheapens my degree" crowd.

Don't get me wrong -- I think that what these people did was unethical and probably illegal (and the related tax fraud was undoubtedly illegal).  But these class action lawsuits are ridiculous.

[Pakuni]

Not good.  It's stupid and a waste of time.  It's never been a secret that there are exceptions made for athletes in the admissions process.  The fact that some of these exceptions that have historically been set aside for athletes were used for non-athletes doesn't harm other applicants.  Now, I suppose a rower who applied to USC (or a tennis player at Georgetown, etc.) might have a legitimate beef, but the average applicant wasn't affected by this at all.  If they weren't suing last week because rowers were getting an advantage, there's no reason to be suing this week because some actress's kid took one of the slots that have been reserved for rowers for years.  And the same thing goes for the "it cheapens my degree" crowd.

Don't get me wrong -- I think that what these people did was unethical and probably illegal (and the related tax fraud was undoubtedly illegal).  But these class action lawsuits are ridiculous.

Agreed. This is a shameless money grab. I'm not sure how the plaintiff here proves standing, much less actual damages. But hey, $500 BILLION seems reasonable.
The sad part is, given all the related bad PR and legal costs, it's probably in the universities' best interests to pay off this troll (and the others that'll surely follow) to make her go away. And that'll likely be covered by schools' insurance, which in turn could drive up costs for everyone else.
So, yeah, not good.