Bay Area couple plead guilty in college scam
Parents admit paying $600K to get daughters into UCLA, USC
A Hillsborough developer and his wife accused in the national college admissions scam Wednesday became the first among dozens of charged parents to plead guilty, admitting in federal court to paying $600,000 to get their daughters fraudulently admitted to UCLA and USC.
Bruce Isackson, 61, and his wife, Davina Isackson, 55, were among 33 parents charged in the massive Operation Varsity Blues college admissions case federal prosecutors in Boston announced March 12. They are among 14 who had agreed last month to plead guilty. The couple could be sentenced to prison.
“I am in fact guilty of the offenses,” Bruce Isackson said in a signed plea agreement April 7. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Patti B. Saris scheduled sentencing for July 31.
Prosecutors in March charged 50 people in the massive case centered around
Southern California college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer, who pleaded guilty March 12 and has cooperated with investigators. He is to be sentenced June 19.
Among the accused parents are two Hollywood actresses and wealthy businesspeople from Silicon Valley and across the country. Prosecutors allege they paid Singer to have proxies boost their children’s scores on college entrance exams or to bribe university coaches to recommend them as athletic recruits with falsified sports profiles. The parents’ payments were disguised as contributions to Singer’s purported charity, the Key Worldwide Foundation.
The scandal involved many of the nation’s top colleges, including USC, Yale, Georgetown, UCLA and Stanford, where head sailing coach John Vandemoer pleaded guilty in the case in March and was fired.
Stanford said Vandemoer took bribes totaling $770,000. That included $160,000 and $110,000 to recommend two student applicants for admission through his sailing program who didn’t enroll. An additional $500,000 came on behalf of a third student who already had been admitted without affiliation with the sailing program. The university said last month it expelled that student after concluding “some of the material in the student’s application is false.”
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported that a Chinese family had paid Singer $6.5 million to secure their daughter’s admission to Stanford in 2017 as a purported member of the sailing team, citing only “people familiar with the matter.” That would be the highest amount known to have been paid for any single student.
Stanford, citing privacy laws, would not clarify whether that was the same student the university had expelled or an additional student.
“Stanford did not receive
$6.5 million from Singer, or from a student’s family working with Singer,” the university said in a statement Wednesday. “Stanford was not aware of this reported $6.5 million payment from the family to Singer until today’s news reports. … We do not know whether any of the $770,000 was part of the $6.5 million reportedly given to Singer.”
Prosecutors said the Isacksons agreed to pay Singer $600,000 in a scheme to falsify their older daughter’s application as a soccer recruit to UCLA, and their younger daughter’s application as a rowing recruit to USC. They also paid to falsify the younger daughter’s ACT test score.
Both daughters were admitted to the schools. The couple also discussed a similar scheme for a third child. None of their children have been charged in the case.
Prosecutors charged the couple with underpaying their federal income taxes by deducting payments as purported charitable contributions that went toward bribing coaches to designate their daughters
as athletic recruits.
According to court documents, the older daughter was admitted to UCLA in 2016 after Ali Kosroshahin, a former coach at USC where she initially had applied, submitted a “falsified soccer profile” on her behalf to UCLA coach Jorge Salcedo.
That summer, Bruce Isackson transferred $251,249 worth of Facebook stock to Singer’s foundation, which in turn paid $100,000 to UCLA coach Salcedo’s sports marketing company and $25,000 to former USC coach Kosroshahin. Both coaches have pleaded not guilty in the case. Davina Isackson thanked Singer for his “creativity” in helping their daughter.
Court documents said that in 2017, a Singer associate traveled from Florida to Southern California to fix the younger Isackson daughter’s ACT score, giving her a 31 out of 36. Bruce Isackson transferred $101,272 worth of stock to Singer’s foundation, which paid $15,600 to the associate who participated in the test cheating.
That fall, a former USC associate athletic director, Donna Heinel, allegedly used the younger daughter’s fraudulent ACT score and rowing profile to recommend her as a rowing recruit. After she was admitted in 2018, Bruce Isackson transferred $249,420 worth of stock to Singer’s foundation, which in turn began sending Heinel $20,000 monthly payments. Heinel has pleaded not guilty in the case.
In recorded conversations in October 2018, Singer told the Isacksons his foundation was being audited and that he wanted to align their story that the “600K-plus has actually gone to pay for — paid to our foundation for underserved kids.” Bruce Isackson acknowledged he took a tax write-off for the charitable contribution.
In another recorded conversation in December, Bruce Isackson told Singer he worried about getting caught.
“Oh my God, it would just be — yeah. Ugh,” Bruce Isackson said, suggesting their future transactions should be in cash.
The Isacksons told the court on April 8 that they would plead guilty. The charge that both pleaded guilty to Wednesday — conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud — carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Bruce Isackson also pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy, punishable by up to 20 years, and conspiracy to defraud the IRS, for which he could face up to five years.
Prosecutors are expected to recommend more lenient sentences in exchange for the couple’s cooperation.
USC and UCLA would not discuss individual students’ cases, citing student privacy laws, but said generally they are investigating the circumstances of kids whose parents are charged in the case and that they could face expulsion. UCLA said after the case was announced that it had put coach Salcedo on leave and “is not aware of any current student-athletes who are under suspicion.”