William Singer arrested in US college admissions scandal

• William Singer gave money from wealthy parents to college coaches
• Singer got the longest sentence of any parent, coach, or other person who was found guilty
• US District Judge Rya W. Zobel also told Singer to pay the federal government

‘William Shatner Singer gave money from wealthy parents to college coaches so that their children could get into elite colleges.

For their part in the scandal, more than 50 people have been found guilty.

Singer’s clients Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are among those who have been found guilty.

Singer got the longest sentence of any parent, coach, or other person who was found guilty in the scandal. It was handed down on Wednesday.

US District Judge Rya W. Zobel also told Singer to pay the federal government $10 million (£8.29 million).

Singer did not pay taxes on the money he got from the scheme. The prosecutors wanted him to go to prison for six years and pay the US Internal Revenue Service. Which added up to be  $10.6 million (£8.79 million).

Singer’s lawyers, on the other hand, said that Singer should get 12 months of house arrest or six months in prison.  Singer helped with the “Operation Varsity Blues” investigation into the scandal.

Singer, a consultant, admitted in 2019 that he helped set up the US college admissions scandal. The coaches then used the money to fraudulently register non-athletic students as recruits, which got them into college.

He also helped people cheat on tests to get into college.

Some of the parents were famous people or CEOs of big companies. This got the attention of media outlets all over the world.

This includes Ms. Loughlin and her husband. Designer Mossimo Giannulli, who were accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to Singer. In order to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California (USC) as fake rowing-team recruits.

For her part in the scandal, Ms. Loughlin served two months in prison in 2020, while her husband served five months.

Prosecutors say Singer got more than $25 million from his clients and gave more than $7 million in bribes to coaches at elite US colleges like USC, Yale, and Stanford.

Singer felt bad about what he did and told the court that his moral compass had been “warped by the lessons about competition that my father taught me. I agreed with him that it was okay to exaggerate or even lie to win as long as you did win.”

In a court filing from November, Singer said that he had “lost everything,” including all of his assets, and that he now lives in a trailer park where he teaches paddleboarding to seniors and autistic kids.

“Family, friends, and the professional world have (rightly) judged me. I will always be known as the “mastermind of Varsity Blues,”” he said.

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