Tag Archives: U.s. College admissions

Parenting book author gets prison for U.S. college admissions scam

Parenting book author gets prison for U.S. college admissions scam
By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – A marketing executive who authored a parenting advice book was sentenced on Wednesday to three weeks in prison for taking part in a vast U.S. college admissions cheating and fraud scheme in order to help her son gain an unfair advantage.

Jane Buckingham, 51, received less than the six-month prison term that federal prosecutors in Boston sought after she admitted to paying $50,000 to have a corrupt test proctor secretly take the ACT college entrance exam on her son’s behalf.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani rejected a request by defense lawyers to sentence the author of “The Modern Girl’s Guide to Motherhood” to probation after noting other wealthy parents also received prison time for their roles in the scheme.

“It’s a serious crime,” said Talwani, who also ordered Buckingham to pay a $40,000 fine.

Buckingham is among 52 people charged with participating in a scheme in which wealthy parents conspired with a California college admissions consultant to use bribery and other forms of fraud to secure the admission of their children to top schools.

William “Rick” Singer, the consultant, pleaded guilty in March to charges he facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and helped bribe sports coaches at universities to present his clients’ children as fake athletic recruits.

The 35 parents charged since March include “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman, who last week began serving a 14-day prison term after pleading guilty, and “Full House” star Lori Loughlin, who is fighting the charges.

Prosecutors said Buckingham, the founder of a successful marking firm in California, in 2018 paid Singer $50,000 to have an associate take the ACT entrance exam in place of her son in order to inflate the score.

The associate was Mark Riddell, a counselor at a Florida private school who has pleaded guilty to taking SAT and ACT college entrance exams in place of Singer’s clients’ children or correcting their answers while acting as a test proctor.

In court, Buckingham apologized for her conduct, saying “nothing will ever make up for what I’ve done.”

“I really want to apologize to the families and children who didn’t have the advantages we did,” she said. “It was wrong, and it was unfair.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chris Reese)

Spurned students sue U.S. colleges in admissions scandal

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – The U.S. college admissions scandal that erupted this week has spawned lawsuits accusing rich, well-connected parents and prestigious schools of conspiring to admit those parents’ children at the expense of the less affluent.

Lawsuits began emerging on Wednesday, a day after federal prosecutors said a California company made about $25 million from parents seeking spots for their children in top schools including Georgetown University, Stanford University, the University of Southern California and Yale University.

Fifty people, including 33 parents, have been criminally charged in the nation’s largest known college admissions scandal. The accused mastermind, William Singer, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.

In one civil lawsuit, Stanford students Erica Olsen and Kalea Woods said they were denied a fair opportunity to win admission to Yale and USC because of alleged racketeering, and said their degrees from Stanford will be devalued.

Singer and eight schools, including Stanford, were named as defendants in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

Another lawsuit by Joshua Toy and his mother said he was denied college admission despite a 4.2 grade point average, and seeks $500 billion of damages from 45 defendants for defrauding and inflicting emotional distress on everyone whose “rights to a fair chance” to enter college was stolen.

The defendants, in that case, include Singer and accused parents, including actress Felicity Huffman, actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, and TPG private equity partner William McGlashan Jr.

“These class-action cases are opportunistic creatures of lawyers trying to obtain a windfall,” Donald Heller, a lawyer for Singer, said in a phone interview.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Both lawsuits were filed in California. More lawsuits are likely.

Prosecutors said Singer used his Edge College & Career Network and an affiliated nonprofit to help prospective students cheat on college admission tests and bribe coaches to inflate their athletic credentials.

The Stanford case is notable because that school is among the country’s most prestigious and selective, admitting just 4.3 percent of its applicants last year.

But Olsen and Woods said their degrees are “now not worth as much” because prospective employers might question whether they were admitted on merit, or had parents whose bribes got them in.

A Stanford spokesman said the university is reviewing the lawsuit.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Susan Thomas)