Feds uncover large-scale college entrance exam cheating plot

[Anonymous]

Check out this ‘winning” legal strategy:

( basically: we didn’t know we were doing something wrong )

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/lori-loughlin-husband-apos-didn-170836216.html

[Anonymous]

I just want to see this thread get to 2000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Check out this ‘winning” legal strategy:

( basically: we didn’t know we were doing something wrong )

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/lori-loughlin-husband-apos-didn-170836216.html

Some "source" said that of them, and it may well be correct (they didn't think they were doing anything wrong), but that's not going to be their "legal strategy." This wasn't their lawyers talking.

[Anonymous]

College admissions are 95% corrupted.

[Anonymous]

This is scary: Friend who lives in LA, deep LA roots, thought the deception was not a big deal. I'm concerned now, very concerned re: "a jury of their peers", the "peers" letting them off. Friend said USC is private, and that would be a crucial point - something to do with private colleges being able to run their admissions any way they want to. Yikes

[Anonymous]

Ignorance of the law is not a defense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is scary: Friend who lives in LA, deep LA roots, thought the deception was not a big deal. I'm concerned now, very concerned re: "a jury of their peers", the "peers" letting them off. Friend said USC is private, and that would be a crucial point - something to do with private colleges being able to run their admissions any way they want to. Yikes

If the issue were USC granting admission based on their own criteria, the feds wouldn't be involved. Numerous crimes were committed that have nothing to do with USC admissions criteria.

[Anonymous]

And apparently there is one family (yet to be identified) that paid $6.5 million to Singer. https://abcnews.go.com/US/lucrative-clients-operation-varsity-blues-college-admissions-scandal/story?id=62661180

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ignorance of the law is not a defense.

what is the law to which you refer? Mail fraud? Conspiracy to commit fraud? There literally is no law against bribing school admissions to get a kid accepted, and that's a proven fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And apparently there is one family (yet to be identified) that paid $6.5 million to Singer. https://abcnews.go.com/US/lucrative-clients-operation-varsity-blues-college-admissions-scandal/story?id=62661180

This family and the second largest, $1.2M, were both Chinese nationals. One of the girls was a current freshman at Yale, who has supposedly left the college. Per WSJ reporting this weekend:

In College Admissions Scandal, Families From China Paid the Most
Families that allegedly paid $1.2 million and $6.5 million show the reach of the cheating ring
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-clients-in-the-college-admissions-scandal-were-from-china-11556301872

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And apparently there is one family (yet to be identified) that paid $6.5 million to Singer. https://abcnews.go.com/US/lucrative-clients-operation-varsity-blues-college-admissions-scandal/story?id=62661180

This family and the second largest, $1.2M, were both Chinese nationals. One of the girls was a current freshman at Yale, who has supposedly left the college. Per WSJ reporting this weekend:

In College Admissions Scandal, Families From China Paid the Most
Families that allegedly paid $1.2 million and $6.5 million show the reach of the cheating ring
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biggest-clients-in-the-college-admissions-scandal-were-from-china-11556301872

And now the NY Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/college-admissions-scandal.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Education

The 33 parents charged in the scandal are mostly accused of paying the consultant, William Singer, either tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to facilitate cheating on admissions tests or to bribe coaches or other officials so that their children could be admitted to schools as recruited athletes.

But the prosecutors leading the largest-ever college admissions prosecution have also alluded to other families, not named and not charged, who paid far more. One family paid Mr. Singer $6.5 million to get their child into college through the recruitment scheme, the prosecutors have said. Another was described in court documents as having paid Mr. Singer $1.2 million in connection with their daughter’s application to Yale.



Prosecutors said that the daughter, whom they called Yale Applicant 1 in court documents, was admitted to Yale as a recruit for the women’s soccer team, despite not being a competitive soccer player. According to documents charging Rudolph Meredith, the former women’s soccer coach at Yale, Mr. Singer had paid Mr. Meredith a bribe to designate the young woman as a recruit for the team. Mr. Singer has pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges, and Mr. Meredith has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges.

On Friday, Yale Applicant 1 was finally identified: She is Sherry Guo, a young woman from China who moved to Southern California for high school, and who was a freshman at Yale until last month, according to her lawyer, James Spertus.

Ms. Guo’s identity was first reported on Friday by The Wall Street Journal.

A spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office in Boston, Christina Sterling, declined to comment on Ms. Guo’s case. Asked why Ms. Guo and her parents — as well as the still unidentified family that was said to have paid Mr. Singer $6.5 million — have not been charged in the case, she said, “I cannot comment other than to say it is an ongoing investigation.”

[Anonymous]

NYTimes reporting today (5/1) that more charges are probably coming in the colleges admissions fraud case. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/college-admissions-scandal.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR0sn887KDD5_lwR6LpAU6N5Wlc7O5bUkygXjvdsqY2F3GF2FMfbQS60xFM

"Federal prosecutors are pursuing a new set of parents in the college admissions fraud scandal, sending ripples of fear through elite circles in Southern California and stirring speculation about which well-heeled executive or celebrity might be the next to be charged.

The prosecutors have informed some of the parents — the exact number is unclear — that they are under investigation in the nation’s largest-ever college admissions probe, according to four defense lawyers. During a trip to Los Angeles in April, the lead prosecutor conferred with lawyers for at least two of these parents.

At the same time, defense lawyers say that a larger array of parents is worried that they, too, will be targeted and is scrambling to hire lawyers and figure out what to do. And, even with these new lines of investigation underway, prosecutors said that they have sent target letters to three students, raising the prospect that the students could face criminal charges and compounding their families’ anxieties. ..."

[Anonymous]

Another set of parents down for the count. Married real estate couple Bruce Isackson and his wife, Davina, have said they take full responsibility for their "bad judgment" and are pleading guilty to $600,000 in bribes.

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/2-Hillsborough-Parents-in-College-Scandal-to-Appear-in-Court-509318141.html

They are very similar in profile to Lori so whatever they get, expect her sentence to be double.

[Anonymous]

Interesting...
https://www.theonion.com/stanford-students-admit-it-was-pretty-obvious-billionai-1834511729?utm_source=Facebook&utm_campaign=SF&utm_content=Main&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&fbclid=IwAR0VHCHZb7IqWHj_HyCLvk6OfFyrKlZkIpSUGiHBRU-lWpeWW3zYtRxaEKs

[Anonymous]

And here's a profile of the girl whose parents made the $6.5 million bribe to Singer and a Stanford athletic coach to get their kid in.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/yusi-molly-zhao-china-stanford.html?fallback=0&recId=1Kjsm0wrBwgUxIjtuTXBtn9qmg5&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=MD&recAlloc=top_conversion&geoCountry=US&blockId=most-popular&imp_id=665972269&action=click&module=Most%20Popular&pgtype=Homepage