William “Rick” Singer, founder of the Edge College & Career Network who used his company and his clients’ money to bribe school officials, has been sentenced today.
Singer had pled guilty to charges of racketeering, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and obstruction of justice. He had bribed numerous university coaches and test administrators and also bribed them to lie to authorities. It’s estimated that he made about $25 million from his clients.
Over 50 different people were arrested in the FBI’s “Operation Varsity Blues” investigation. Most served time for a short period.
Today, at the federal courthouse in Boston, Singer was sentenced to three and half years in prison with an additional three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $10 million to the IRS. Federal prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Singer for six years in prison and three years of supervised release. Prosecutors had also stated that “It will send a devastating message that fraud pays and obstruction of justice pays.”
Most will recognize him as the central figure who helped get Lori Loughlin’s daughter into USC. Lori Loughlin pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and was sentenced in 2020 to two months in prison, fined $150,000, and ordered to serve 100 hours of community service. Her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, played a more significant role, and thus served five months in prison, and was ordered to pay $250,000 while having to do 200 hours of community service. Singer also helped to inflate the SAT scores of Felicity Huffman’s daughter. Huffman served 14 days in prison after pleading guilty.
In 2018, during a conversation with a parent who was trying to get their teenager into a celebrated university, Singer said, “There is a front door which means you get in on your own. The back door is through institutional advancement, which is 10 times as much money. And I’ve created this side door.”
Now, he will pay the price for creating that side door by spending three and a half years behind a prison cell door.