Actresses charged in admissions scandal

They’re among dozens accused of paying bribes to get kids in colleges.

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people Tuesday in a major college admissions scandal that involved wealthy parents, including Hollywood celebrities and prominent business leaders, paying bribes to get their children into elite American universities.

What happened

Thirty-th ree pare nts we re charged in the case. Also implicated were top college coaches, who were accused of accepting millions of dollars to help admit students to Wake Forest, Yale, Stanford, the University of Southern California and other schools, regardless of their academic or sports ability, officials said.

Along with Hollywood stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, those charged included prominent business leaders, a fashion designer and a top lawyer, as well as exam administrators accused of manufacturing students’ achievements and private admissions counselors accused of coordinating it all, officials said.

The case unveiled Tuesday was stunning in its breadth and audacity. It was the Justice Department’s largest ever college admissions prosecution, a sprawling investigation that involved 200 agents nationwide and resulted in charges against 50 people in six states.

Why it matters

The charges also underscored how college admissions have become so cutthroat and competitive that some have sought to break the rules. Authorities say the parents of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most privileged students sought to buy spots for their children at top universities, not only cheating the system but also potentially cheating other hardworking students out of a chance at a college education.

“The parents are the prime movers of this fraud,” Andrew E. Lelling, U.S. attorney for the district of Massachusetts, said Tuesday. Lelling said that those parents used their wealth to create a separate and unfair admissions process.

But, Lelling said, “there will not be a separate criminal justice system” for them.

“The real victims in this case are the hardworking students,” who were displaced in the admissions process by “far less quali- fied students and their families who simply bought their way in,” Lelling said.

Center of the case

At the center of the case was William Rick Singer, founder of a college preparatory business called the Edge College & Career Network, also known as The Key.

Authorities said Singer, who has agreed to plead guilty and cooperated with federalprosecutors, used The Key and its nonprofit arm, Key Worldwide Foundation, which is based in Newport Beach, California, to help students cheat on their standardized tests and to pay bribes to the coaches who could get them into college with fake athletic credentials.

Singer also bribed Division 1 athletic coaches to tell admissions officers that they wanted certain students.