United States: three and a half years in prison for the mastermind of a corruption system of university admissions

The mastermind of a corruption operation to bring students into American universities was sentenced on Wednesday January 4 to three and a half years in prison in Boston, in a case that had splashed rich and famous American families.

William “Rick” Singer, who pleaded guilty in 2019 and cooperated with justice, was considered the conductor of a vast fraud which lasted around ten years and saw the condemnation of more than fifty parents , college sports coaches, and other accomplices.

Among them is American actress Lori Loughlin, known for her role in

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She served two months in prison in 2020 after admitting with her husband to having paid 500,000 dollars to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California (USC).

Star of the "Desperate Housewives" series, Felicity Huffman served 11 days behind bars in 2019 for paying $15,000 to falsify her eldest daughter's college entrance tests.

Read alsoUnited States: actress Lori Loughlin begins a 2-month prison sentence

The scandal, revealing the inequalities of the American university system, broke out in March of the same year, when Rick Singer, former boss of an exam preparation company, admitted to having set up a system of corruption ranging from cheating to entrance tests to the corruption of university sports coaches.

Purpose of the operation, to guarantee the access of children from wealthy backgrounds to prestigious, very expensive and selective universities such as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown or UCLA.

The university coaches thus agreed to allocate places in their teams to facilitate the admissions of these students.

Rick Singer was also ordered to return more than $10 million to the U.S. IRS, asset forfeiture for more than $5.3 million, and monetary forfeiture for approximately $3.4 million, the report said. Massachusetts State Federal Attorney's Office.

According to justice, he had received some 25 million dollars and had paid around 7 million in bribes to university coaches or exam supervisors.