About 50 people including the very well known actors like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were taken into custody for paying bribes to the officials to get their children admitted into the reputed and popular universities of US like Yale, Stanford, UCLA, etc. Apart from these actresses, singer William Rick and the SAT/ACT administrators and athletic coaches who are actively involved in this scam, have also been taken into custody.
William Rick is the founder of a college prep business named ‘Edge College & Career Network’ in California. Under this, the singer was said to be charging approximately $100,000 to about $2.5 million, per child for the services. According to the authorities, few rich personalities were found guilty of paying huge sums of money to the singer to have proxies take some tests required for making students eligible for admission, on behalf of their children.
These personalities include Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli who are accused of paying $500,000. This amount was paid to the intermediaries at Universities of Southern California to get both their daughters admitted into the university. On the other hand, Felicity Huffman is accused of paying $15,000 as a ‘charitable donation’. The actual motive behind this considerate donation was to open up the path for her daughter to walk into the university.
The FBI while interacting with the media regarding the college admission scandal stated that this fraud is not just about the rich buying admissions, but also involves cheating, bribery, money laundering, and falsification. The conspiracy involves bribing SAT and ACT administrators, bribing the athletic coaches of the university, and using singer William Rick’s business to cover the sources of bribes. All those seriously involved in the scam could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty, confirmed the sources.
Accused among others are Rudolf Meredith, former head soccer coach Yale University, Mark Riddell, counselor of a private school in Bradenton, Florida, and John Vandemoer, the head sailing coach at Stanford University.
For every college admission done through fraud, a genuinely talented and deserving student was rejected. This college admission scam is said to be the biggest academic scandal the US is currently experiencing. Sources state that around 300 FBI and Internal Revenue agents are involved in this operation. What follows next will be worth waiting for.
