Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged Tuesday in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation's most selective schools.
Federal authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department, with the parents accused of paying an estimated $25 million in bribes.
Two more of those charged -- Stanford's sailing coach and the college-admissions consultant at the very centre of the scheme -- pleaded guilty Tuesday in Boston. Others appeared in court and were released on bail. The central figure in the scheme was identified as admissions consultant William "Rick" Singer, founder of the Edge College & Career Network of Newport Beach, California. He pleaded guilty, as did Stanford's John Vandemoer.
"For every student admitted through fraud, an honest and genuinely talented student was rejected," Lelling said. Authorities said coaches in such sports as soccer, sailing, tennis, water polo and volleyball took payoffs to put students on lists of recruited athletes, regardless of their ability or experience. Once they were accepted, many of these students didn't play the sports in which they supposedly excelled.
Caplan was accused of paying $75,000 to get a test supervisor to correct the answers on his daughter's ACT exam after she took it. In a conversation last June with a co-operating witness, he was told his daughter needed to "be stupid" when a psychologist evaluated her for learning disabilities that would entitle her to more time to take the test, according to court papers."Every time," the witness responded, prompting laughter from both.
Court documents said Huffman paid $15,000 that she disguised as a charitable donation so that her daughter could take part in the entrance-exam cheating scam.
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