Leader of pay-to-play scam to be sentenced
Prosecutors seek a 6-year term, fines
The mastermind of a historic pay-to-play scheme for wealthy parents to get their teens into top universities was set to be sentenced this week.
Prosecutors want William “Rick” Singer, the college admissions scam architect, to serve six years in prison and pay over $19 million in fines and asset forfeitures. Singer's attorneys are seeking probation with home detention and community service.
Singer is one of the last to be sentenced in connection to the decadelong scandal that led to more than 50 arrests and convictions, including celebrities like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who used Singer's services to get their kids into elite schools.
His scheme involved paying off test proctors and administrators to cheat on college entrance exams and bribing college athletic coaches and administrators to designate applicants as athletic recruits based on fabricated credentials, court documents have shown.
Singer, who has cooperated with federal prosecutors since September 2018, told the court in his own words that he takes responsibility for his actions and feels shame for them.
“I have been reflecting on my very poor judgment and criminal activities that increasingly had become my way of life. I have woken up every day feeling shame, remorse and regret,” Singer wrote in a recent court submission ahead of his sentencing. “I acknowledge that I am fully responsible for my crimes.”
In reflecting on the scheme that cost him his own wealth, he attributes his motivations to a fierce competitive drive to “win at all costs.”
“By ignoring what was morally, ethically and legally right in favor of winning what I perceived was the college admissions `game,' I have lost everything,” Singer wrote.
Prosecutors in their respective sentencing memo acknowledged Singer's cooperation with the government as “historical” and “hugely significant.”
For several months ahead of federal officials' announcement of Operation Varsity Blues, Singer turned over online communications and documents, voluntarily recorded phone calls with clients and associates and wore a wire in person with several individuals.
Still, his cooperation was not perfect, according to prosecutors.
Singer “not only obstructed the investigation by tipping off at least six of his clients,” the sentencing memo says, “but also failed to follow the government's instructions in other ways, including by deleting text messages and using an unauthorized cell phone.”