William Rick Singer faces 6 Years in Prison for College Admissions Fraud

(CTN News) – After he assisted them in getting the convictions of other rich parents, including Hollywood celebrities, federal prosecutors requested a court on Wednesday to sentence William “Rick” Singer, mastermind of the biggest college admissions fraud scheme ever unearthed in the United States, to six years in prison.

A week before William Rick Singer, the college admissions consultant at the core of the “Operation Varsity Blues” probe, appears before a court for punishment after entering a guilty plea in 2019, prosecutors made the suggestion.

William Rick Singer acknowledged enabling college entrance test cheating and using funds from affluent parents. He considered customers to pay dishonest coaches and sports officials to guarantee the admission of their kids as false athletes.

His attorneys suggested that William Rick Singer serve only six months in jail or 12 months at home if imprisonment was deemed necessary. They said that William Rick Singer’s cooperation with the authorities was essential to building many of the charges they filed.

Although William Rick Singer’s “extraordinary” cooperation should be commended, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel in Boston that his offenses called for the worst punishment of any “Varsity Blues” defendant.

The investigation that led to the conviction of more than 50 individuals, including stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, two of the several well-off parents William Rick Singer claimed as clients will end with his anticipated sentence on January 4.

According to the prosecution, William Rick Singer received more than $25 million from his customers while running his California-based college admissions advising business, The Key and a connected charity.

At Georgetown University, the University of Southern California, Yale University, and Stanford University, among others, he allegedly shelled out more than $7 million to bribe coaches and officials.

In his declaration, Singer, residing in a Florida trailer park, said that he lost everything because he “ignored what was morally, ethically, and legally proper in favor of winning what I thought to be the college admissions “game”.”

It is not lost on me that my actions affected not just the kids who participated in my scam but also everyone who felt they were denied the opportunity to attend the institution of their choice because they lacked the funds or didn’t cheat their way in, William Rick Singer said in his statement.

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