On Tuesday, March 12, 2019, Justice Department officials said in a press conference in Boston that this case is the biggest college admissions scandal they’ve ever prosecuted. Over four dozen people charged in a college admission cheating scam, where the wealthy individuals paid up to over $6.5 million to place their children in high nobility and competitive colleges such as USC, Georgetown, Yale and Stanford.
Rick Singer, the true scammer behind all of scams. He is believed to orchestrating the admission bribery scam. Singer was accused of setting up the SAT or ACT administrator or a college athletic coach who would fake the athletic profile and photo-shopping students faces onto sports pictures, trolling the college(s) that these students played the sport(s), when the students did not play a sport at all in their high school careers. The company was based in Newport Beach, California and began in 2011.
“I created a side door,” Singer said in federal court on Tuesday as he pleaded guilty to four counts related to the multimillion dollar scam and admitted the case against him was accurate.” – CNN
Investigators followed the large transfers of money, that followed to Singer. Singer, knowing he was caught and facing a majority of evidence, had agreed to work with investigators in September, Assistant US Attorney Eric Rosen said Tuesday.
Singer was instructed to meet with parents interested in guaranteeing their children’s acceptance into college(s). Singer had confessed to authorities that he told the client, a father, that he is wearing a wire and shouldn’t say anything illegal. Singer stated that he also told clients that if they receive a call from him, it’s most likely recorded.
Between September to March, Singer had about six families who had either taken part of the scam or were going to.
On a call with one parent, prosecutors said, Singer basically described the “little business” of his as: “What we do is help the wealthiest families in the US get their kids into school… my families want a guarantee.”
Two people, who might seem familiar to you, have been charged within the scandal. Full House star, Lori Loughlin, best known for playing “Aunt Becky” has been charged, along with her husband, fashion designer, Mossimo Giannulli. Desperate Housewives star, Felicity Huffman, has also been charged within the scandal. Both actresses have been arrested and charged with fraud, as well as all the other parents involved in the scam. Loughlin was released on a $1 million bond; Huffman was released on a $250,000 bond.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) March 12, 2019
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https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/1106290384307548160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1106290384307548160&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpeople.com%2Fmovies%2Folivia-munn-slams-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin%2F
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Loughlin has been dropped by Fuller House and Hallmark. “We are saddened by the recent news surrounding the college admissions allegations. We are no longer working with Lori Loughlin and have stopped development of all productions that air on the Crown Media Family Network channels involving Lori Loughlin including ‘Garage Sale Mysteries,’ an independent third-party production,” the Hallmark statement read.
As for Huffman, there has not been any statements of her employment.
Lori Loughlin’s daughters’, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose, have both dropped out of USC after the college scandal broke out. Jade, a fashion and makeup YouTuber, has been under fire as well, for a resurfaced video of her stating that she “doesn’t care about school” and is just attending for the “parties and ball games.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A7eEjLnZoc
(Credit: YouTube)
https://twitter.com/oliviajadee/status/855271683405488131?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E855271683405488131&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thecut.com%2F2019%2F03%2Fcelebrity-college-cheating-scandal-most-bizarre-details.html
imagine being so privileged that you go to college for the “experience” of partying and games??? While people are struggling to get it so they can hopefully get a decent career https://t.co/fYCKHP6VmY
— em!★ (@ehmawi) March 13, 2019
Jade has since lost her Sephora sponsorship after many people demanded the beauty company to cut ties with Loughlin’s daughter.
Hi there, After careful review of recent developments, we have made the decision to end the Sephora Collection partnership with Olivia Jade, effective immediately.
— Sephora (@Sephora) March 14, 2019
Olivia Jade's Sephora collab is up to 86 1-star reviews, from 4 yesterday pic.twitter.com/XwlL0ZRy4H
— Kate Taylor (@Kate_H_Taylor) March 13, 2019
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Not only are all these parents at risk for facing jail time, they are also all being sued by angry parents $500 Billion.
“Jennifer Kay Toy filed a complaint on Wednesday in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, against all the defendants in the college admissions bribery scandal, including Huffman, Loughlin, her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, businessman Gregory Abbot, private equity investor Bill McGlashan, and many others.
Toy, a former school teacher from Oakland, California, claimed in her lawsuit that her son, Joshua Toy, was rejected from some of the same colleges that were involved in the bribery scandal, despite his work ethic and 4.2 GPA, and she believes he wouldn’t have been if the admissions process wasn’t manipulated.
“Because of Joshua’s hard work and study he graduated with a 4.2 grade point average. I couldn’t be more proud. Joshua applied to some of the colleges where the cheating took place and did not get in,” Toy wrote in the lawsuit. “Joshua and I believed that he’d had a fair chance just like all other applicants, but did not make the cut for some undisclosed reason.”
“I’m now aware of the massive cheating scandal wherein wealthy people conspired with people in positions of power and authority at colleges in order to allow their children to gain access to the very colleges that Joshua was rejected from,” Toy continued, claiming, “Plaintiffs simply wanted a fair chance for themselves or their children to go to a good college, and that opportunity for a fair chance was stolen by the actions of the Defendants… who feel that, because they are wealthy, they are allowed to lie, cheat and steal from others.”
Toy’s lawsuit is considered as a class action complaint, filed “on behalf of all persons in the United States… whose rights to a fair chance at entrance to college was stolen by the actions of Defendants.” – ET Online
https://twitter.com/JenetAllDay/status/1105484881797144576
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