There Ain't No Cure for the Varsity Blues: Rick Singer

Applying to college. Oh, what a busy time that is for high school students. There are stressors like posing for a fake rowing photo or making sure your SAT ringer spelled your name right on the Scantron. See, while some teens spend all their time studying and participating in activities to get ahead, others spend their parents' cash to game the system. Gotta put that Full House syndication money to good use! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zerum.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, Elizabeth, how you doing, Bud?

Speaker 3 (00:07):
I was looking forward to seeing you today, drove over
here and I was all excited. I'm like, Elizabeth's gonna
tell me a story?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yep, I am.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
I love story time with Eli.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I look forward to.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Sometimes I'm gonna have bad days. I'm like, oh, only
one more day, so I get a story with Elizabeth.
That's what you call a compliment. Try it out sometime,
thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I just roll in here like, sorry, at.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Least the interns are here. You know. It's ridiculous, Oh, Elizabeth,
do I ever? So I found something that has a
combination of three of our interests. This is like a triangle, right, Okay?
You like Graham Nash from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
He's my least favorite of the four, but yeah, sure.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
But you still do have like at least a softest spot,
and you're hard for him than I do.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Okay, Well, this is a quote from him, and it's
about somebody who I really like, and I think you
really like Jimmy Hendrix.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
And the third part is the board game risk.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh that's something you lost.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
My god, I am like I have friends who will
not play with me because they've never beaten me. I
am malicious. I am like sun Su on the risk board.
I am red. No, It's like it's one of the
few things I'll be like, I'm really good at this
game because I'm I'm, I'm pitiless, I am I'm, I'm unscrupulous,
like I love to just like, oh, I'm taking kumchuka
and I'm gonna want to watch you whine. Let's roll

(01:25):
them dice anyway. Turns out, guess who was also really
good at risk?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Jimmy Hendricks, not Graham Nash.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
So according to Graham Nash quote, Jimmy would play risk
on acid and I never ever beat him at all.
He was unbelievable at it. He was a military man.
You know, he's a paratrooper. I don't know whether you
know that about Jimmy, but no one ever beat him
at risk.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Now, all I want to do when I get up
to Heaven is take some acid with Jimmy Hendricks and
ask get a risk board.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Be like, let's do it, man, it sounds amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Who gets the Australia move? Love that? There you go.
I take South America can head around Jimmy playing Jimmy
Hendricks on acid. I'm playing him risk on ask sober.
Oh yeah, totally. But I mean like, but he's like,
I'm not sure if I've told this story of a
friend named Jay and uh, he was once on psychedelics mushrooms.

(02:17):
We were playing Madden and we were playing We used
to play Madden Football all the time. We were all
really good at it, and none of us could beat
him for like four or five, maybe six hours, and
he was just cackling at us, like you're gonna try
that all and just beating us. He was totally in
the zone. So I want to see Jimmy Hendrix just laughing,
face melting at me while I'm like sitting there mad
because I can't take over Western United States from him.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
I thought that that is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Love
to hear it faking being on the rowing team, like
just get out there. It's just buddy good. Yes, this

(03:13):
is ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Heighs cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous, you damn right. Back in my day,
if you wanted to go to college, you went through
a bunch of catalogs and books in the academic advisor's

(03:35):
office and check things out. Our academic advisor was named
Sister David, oh nice, and she tended to doze off
when you were in one on one meetings with her,
and so we called her Sleepy Dave. And you'd make
appointments with Sleepy Dave to go ask about college and
then just hang out in her office while she snoozed.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
And would you be like reading the catalogs yourself?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
No, I'd just be like doing homework or reading magazines
or something. She also forgot to tell everyone what the
deadline was to register for the SATs and the acts,
and the parents had a fit. I think she retired
after that, God bless anyway. So you filled out all
these applications by hand, and you sent checks, and you
worried and watch the mailbox. And I'm sure there were

(04:18):
rich kids who had help with this process, But I
had never heard of that. Yeah, I didn't know about that,
you know. Of course I wasn't in their orbit, so
why should I have known about it? Today? Though, it
seems pretty common for those with means to hire consultants
to help get their kids into college.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, they're from early like filling elementary school.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
They start like navigating, and they help them pick schools
and like craft good entrance essays and juice up their
extracurriculars and various activities.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
And met alumni too. Right, you can help them.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Oh yeah, and that weren't working. And I like, I
vaguely remember some girls at my all girls high school
participating in stuff in order to boost their extracurriculars. But
like most of us me included, just did we were
interested in.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
But you, I mean we had some of those go
getters who really wanted to go to Harvard or Yale
or Oxford or whatever. Yeah, and they would totally do
the thing, knowing it would look good. They would run
for public office, they would go do some volunteer work,
knowing it would round out their application. But also like
the thing that I was always reminded to do was
doing the network. You got to go meet like you know,
father Greg, he always can get guys into Harvard or right, right,

(05:22):
did they have it for you for the sisters, I'm.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Not really, I mean they kind of did, but you know,
we had sleepy days. Yes, right, and like I knew
people who are like I, I gotta do this, I
gotta do this. It's going to look so good. I
did a lot of stuff, but I was just a power.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Nerd Oh yeah, you counted on your actual numbers.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah. I was like, no, I really want to be
in model United Nations. Like, I didn't play tennis thinking
it would be a way to get into colleges. Loved it. Sure,
it played all the time. And when I got a
letter my senior year from a nearby small college offering
me a tennis scholarship based on my quote stellar season.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Look at you.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
I knew they hadn't even glanced at our or my
record because we were terrible. Oh yeah, I won maybe
fifty of matches that season. We didn't have a full team,
and so I was in the first seed doubles and
then I played fourth seed singles. We sandbagged. Those are
the ones I won. I just demolished. Sure, but after

(06:16):
having played a first seed doubles anyway, I couldn't trust
that place. So they're like, yeah, you're amazing, Like how
desperate are you? Anyway? Exactly? Ap classes are a big thing,
and it wasn't so much like a selling point about
getting into college, but like a way to get college

(06:37):
credit stuff out of the way. I don't think we
had dual enrollment then, which is where high school students
take courses at a community college to get credits while
still in high school, which is huge now and a
fantastic resource. But I mean we may have had it,
and like sister Dave, just didn't tell us about it.
That's highly likely.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
I think it was available, but very very limited.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah. Well, for me, pick the college to attend came
down to Vibes, so I was dead set on UCLA.
I got in, I went to visit. It seemed cool.
Of course, my high school only had two hundred and
fifty students total, so it was a little overwhelming.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
I bet. But I grew up both a big school
and in LA Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
But I grew up in an urban area, so that
was true. Yeah. And I also got into UC Davis
and I didn't really want to go there, but my
mom convinced me to at least visit, and I like
step foot on campus and was sold. I was like,
this is it. It's so calm, huge, lawns everywhere, people
like lazily cruising by on bikes. So many bikes, so

(07:37):
many trees, so many trees, so relaxing.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
By the way, good job on your mom to make
you go at least to take a look at it.
Good for you, imagination.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Thummas is always right. One of the best decisions in
my life to go there for many reasons. Today though
the pressure is on.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
I wouldn't know you if you didn't go there, because
that's so true. I met you. You going to ud.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Exactly see right there, we wouldn't have ridiculus.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, look at that your mom's decision.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Thank you, mamas, you did it. Look at her. We
got to put her in the credits. It's so high
pressure now. Like in higher education, there's rightfully so a
lot of talk about, as I've said, return on investment ROI.
So college is expensive, the labor market's changing. You don't
always need a degree to make a ton of money,
and oftentimes paying off a degree that isn't doing you

(08:25):
much good can ruin you. But in the upper echelons
they aren't so much concerned with return on investment, at
least in the way US common folk are. So they
want the status of a college or a university. The
parents want to be able to brag that their kid
went there. Oh, I'm a Stanford mom, and they're buying
like a network in connections for the kid. So do

(08:48):
they worry about whatever degree the kid gets will lead
to gainful employment. No, not really. It's all about the
flex the vibes. But not in a good way, not
in the Oh my god, I love bikes and lawns. No.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
So, like I said, this is thank you distinction for me.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
I have to good vibes, bad vibes. This is This
is common among those with means these days, and not
even the super rich. But when you reach certain levels
of wealth or fame, it gets to a whole new
realm of college admissions, consultant work, and like every other
booming and emerging industry, it's ripe for crime. Oh I

(09:28):
bring us there eventually. And at the rotten core of
it all is a guy, a guy named Rick Singer.
So come with me as we learn about Rick and
what spiraled out to become something called Operation Varsity Blues.
Oh snap, oh snap. Rick Singer born in Santa Monica, California,
in nineteen sixty Sam Oh moondoggie. He moved with his

(09:51):
family to Illinois as a kid, and he was like
pretty good athlete. He went to college at Trinity University
in San Antono, Texas, and it was there that he
got a bachelor's in English and Physical education in nineteen
eighty six.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Okay, like a peak teacher.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Nothing says that you like to teach the English class
and coach football and journalism. Eddy of your book.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
So after that he gets out of college, he moves
back to California, the land of his birth. You know,
she always calls us home. He got a gig as
the head basketball coach at Encina High School in Sacramento.
Oh yeah, yeah, good for him. But then he got fired.
Not good for him. It seems he was a little
too intense, not towards the students, but rather abusive towards

(10:36):
the refs.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
Oh so, he wasn't like hitting the kids and like
yelling at them. He was getting the refs correct.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
It didn't matter that, because he soon landed a job
as an assistant basketball coach at Sacramento State University from
nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Hornets.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
The Hornets, I won't say go Hornets because their arrival
of UC Davis so Bo along the way way he
married his wife Allison. For whatever reason, he left that
job coaching at Sex State, not being married to Alison.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Okay, right, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
And then he struck out on his own in business,
not in his marriage, so he opened a college advising
business Future Stars College and Career Counseling.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Future Stars and Career College Career.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Counseling Future Stars College and Career, College and Career. He
counseled quite a mouthful. It really is f S C
C C.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
I guess it's probably known as Future Stars.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Future Stars is probably what they said. He would counsel
local students. Then he drummed up through these like presentations
at high schools and college fairs and stuff.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
So he's like one of those people. Are like they
they offered to teach you how to model, like in
a in a shopping mall, like you should join you
got looks totally for a month, you can teach you.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
He wasn't. He wasn't like this dazzling speaker doesn't sound
like you know. Everything was very straightforward and factual and dry.
He's still the same guy used to yell at ref's right,
but he managed to dominate the college admissions consulting game
in Sacramento. He got results in like word of mouth spread.
Parents loved him. High school guidance counselors not so much. Really, Yeah,

(12:14):
the sleepy Daves of the Sacramento area. Yeah, Sister David
had no clue what was going. You know, she wouldn't
feel threatened. She didn't know what she was doing. God
bless her. Jill Newman, a counselor Rio Americano High School SEMO, Yeah,
called Rick quote shady and quote sneaky from the get go.

(12:40):
Apparently all the high school counselors in the area knew
about him and his tactics. So Newman she described some
of said tactics. Quote. He kind of targeted Rio Jesuit,
Bella Vista, and Saint Francis' families who either had a
standing in the community or he knew they were business members,
people who could afford to have him. He started to

(13:00):
build in fear fear of not getting into college, fear
of not getting into the right college. He told people,
the high school counselors are so overworked they can't be
expected to have time and resources for every student. He
said he could fill the huge gaps we had, which
we didn't.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Oh my god, I want to know the years, because
like I was at Jesuit, I can to totally imagine
this guy coming and trying to except people.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Rio is, as we said, Rio Americano, which is a
public school. Jesuit is the Catholic boys' school in Sacramento
where you went. Bella Vista High School is a public
and Saint Francis is the Catholic girl And they're all
very nice schools in very good neighborhoods, very aspiration, Yeah,
with wealthy families. Dorothy Missler was an administrator at Jesuit

(13:48):
while Rick was working the area, and she shared Newman's concerns.
Missler said in an interview quote, he was like the
pied piper. He played the music and they followed him
down the lane. So eventually he sold future stars and
he left Sacramento. And the place is still in business,
by the way. Yeah, it looks to be on the

(14:08):
up and up. And for whatever reason or something probably
probably for whatever reason, Rick he headed out to Omaha, Nebraska,
and he got a job as a telemarketer. I'm going
to pretend that it was selling Omaha steaks.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
I'm going to pretend he wanted to get into a
new federal court district.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
I think that's good too. But he made his way
back to coaching. He just rocked up to a Jewish
community center and offered to coach middle school basketball. Okay,
so okay, they said. So they're like, okay, you know fine.
He was crazy competitive. It sounds like he'd throw chairs, yeah,

(14:50):
night style. He used course language. He held four hour
practices for middle schoolers. Oh god, yeah, and he would
do everything to like steam role opponents. They be way
ahead and he would just be like, keep hitting them.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Score.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
You know. Parents now would love him like a travel
ball that paying.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
For exactly he got results. One former player on his
team told dead Spin that Singer tried to bring in
a ringer from a local Catholic prep school singers ringer
for a middle school, a Catholic prep school, to play
on the community center's team for the JCC maccabee games.

(15:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I hadn't heard of JCC macabee. So
here's what they say on their website. For over forty years,
JCC mccabee has been rallying and uniting the Jewish community
around a positive, unparalleled and transformative Jewish experience, inspiring Jewish identity, building,
strengthening connections amongst a diverse global representation of Jewish teens

(15:52):
to one another and to Israel, and cultivating the next
generation of proud Jewish leaders. And it does so through
the universal lens of sport, the most inclusive and influential
vehicle for teen engagement and impact. And it goes on
to talk about this is huge, like sporting, it's a

(16:12):
good thing, which makes it kind of hilarious and also
hugely against the rules that he had a Catholic school
kid up in there, just like dominating James, So like
his coaching career there flamed out when he picked a
fight with one of the adults at a game. I
don't know if it was a parent, coach, a ref
who knows either way, out of there, out of there,

(16:36):
never to be seen again. So he couldn't resist Sacramento's
sirens song, bring it back. You know we none of
us can, So back he went. He started up another
admissions consulting business in two thousand and seven chair oh yeah,
the Big Tomato. This one was called the Edge Collegen
Career Network and also known as the Key. So he

(16:59):
developed the network once again in and around Sacramento. Then
around twenty twelve he moved down to Newport Beach, California.
And there are certainly some rich families there.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
He morphed his for profit business into the non profit
the Key Worldwide Foundation. So at this point love more hatim.
Rick was seen as a pioneer in college admissions assistance,
like this advisor for hire, and it didn't really exist
until Rick made it his machine. So it was around

(17:32):
twenty eleven that he moved back down to Newport. Allison
had divorced him. No, he was ready for a revamped Yeah,
so anew and improved and even more intense, Rick.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Are you kidding me on that count? More intense?

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah? So moving to Newport Beach really up the stakes.
Like there's money and power in Sacramento, what with the
state government, the capital, business, agriculture, but there's serious money
in power and fame in southern California areas Newport.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
It's a different nexus of money and power. Correct, It's
not the Sutter Club. It's more like I know somebody.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
In Hollywood exactly in finance.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
That's so good.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
So Rick, he started getting some wealthy and high profile
parent clients, and he was clear with them that he
had two ways of working with his clients. There was
the front door that was for ordinary, law abiding students
applying the normal way and hoping for the best. Then
there was the side door that was for families who
made huge donations to the school of choice in the

(18:32):
hope of boosting a student's chances for admissions. It's legal,
but it's not a guarantee. And I guess. Then there
was the side side door.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Are we talking like enough to like put your name
on a building?

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah? Oh wow, okay, And then then so we have
those two front door, side door, and then like back door,
the illegal stuff door. There's the illegal stuff door. Let's
take a break and we come back. We're going to
walk through the illegal door. Oh yeah, let's talk about

(19:18):
that third secret doors eron back door. Yeah. There were
two components to this, sure the illegal door. The first
was straight up cheating on exams.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Okay, you'd send in somebody else to take the sah.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah. So Rick would create a paper trail for accommodations.
That was one part of it. He would arrange for
psychologists and other vendors, sometimes through referrals, to produce documentation
that diagnosed students with learning disabilities or like ADHD level. Yeah,
and then the reports were used to request testing accommodations
from the College boarder Act. And this would get them

(19:52):
stuff like extended time, separate testing rooms, or administration at
an alternate site. And so that that gave students two advantages.
One obviously extra time to manipulate answer sheets, and private
test settings where fewer independent witnesses would notice them sat.
So Rick told clients that a falsified diagnosis, you know,

(20:14):
it's great. You can reuse it for future tests. You
get to college, you can use it there. This is
an investment. So like once the accommodations were approved, tests
were scheduled at times and locations like private rooms or
certain test centers where Rick's associates or like he had
bribed the staff so they could control the environment and

(20:34):
private testing. You know, so we don't have those third
party observers. You could substitute a test taker, yeah, and
you could allow unauthorized access. You could alter answer sheets
after the fact. So that the Department of Justice Affidavid
details multiple instances of tests administered at compromised sites. And

(20:57):
when I mentioned the Department of Justice here you can
see where this is all going. Oh yeah, yeah, so
now about those ringers not Catholic basketball players.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
On another level, yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Rick he employed or like coordinated with people who either
a took the test in place of the student using
fake IDs.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Yes, I had a friend who did this.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, just amateur level.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah no, no, just amateur. He didn't do it for
a business or for anybody, but he he both wrote
essays and for inter college interests and then took tests,
like took the SATs acts. This was but back before
people really like let me see your ID. They weren't
crazy about it, walk in and be like, yeah, I'm
Greg dad, right.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Right, Well that's what that's what Rick was doing. B
You could pose as proctors and then correct students answer
sheets after testing. Yeah, and so one of them is
this guy, Mark Riddell. He was like the most prominent
one that Rick used. He took exams for students. He
also admitted to correcting answers after students completed tests. So

(21:58):
when a ringer was used, Rick got his hands on
IDs and registration materials showing the student's name, but with
the ringer's photo and that was enough to satisfy local
test center checks at the time. And so there were
cases where the ringer would sit for multiple exams under
different student names, just have all these different ideas. Rick

(22:21):
he coached the ringers, and he sometimes calibrated final scores
so that they looked reasonable for the student's application profile.
So like you couldn't have him getting all perfect scores
that would send up red flags, or like if they
always seem to struggle with math in their transcripts, then
they would stumble slightly on that side.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Of the Do you know many people who got perfect
scores on SATs?

Speaker 2 (22:43):
I knew like two or three.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
I had a couple of friends who got perfect scores
and two of them are now in prison.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Oh wow, yeah, nice.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
Coming about it is like they were just too like
tightly wired.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah yeah, Well it's like standardized testing I feel like
is a good test of if you can figure out
what people want to hear well.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
So I'm the belief that this is a world for
c students and not for like A students. A lot
of people I know who are really good at stuff
did not have I We're like just kind of getting by.
They are presidents of things. Now they are like, are
fabulously wealthy?

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Right, Just a good point something to think about kids.
So okay, so they want to make it believable in
the in these test results parents, they got charged thousands
of dollars per test, generally in the neighborhood of ten
thousand dollars a test. Yeah, for the service. Yeah. Remember

(23:33):
how he made his business nonprofit. Yeah, well, payments were
disguised as charitable donations to Key Worldwide Foundation KWF. So
that's the test taking part of it. Next up is
the fake athletic recruit route.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
I'm still belonging by ten thousand per test.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, yeah, Like, how dumb do you think your kid is?
We're like, I got to give ten grand otherwise these
scores are going to be you.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Know, I gotta tell my friend he really under charged, right.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
So Rick heat Rick Rick Rick Rick mapped which schools
had athletic staff who could influence admissions, and then he
classified applicants as recruited athletes. Since this is a category
that's like a lot of times it's fast tracked or
like given heavier weight and admissions. He then targeted coaches, administrators,

(24:23):
you know, those who had the authority to designate recruits
or who could like influence the athletics admission committee. So
the DOJ's case list names coaches at University of Southern California, USC, Yale,
University of Texas, Wake Forest, Georgetown, a whole bunch of
other schools. And when I see private schools, yeah yeah,

(24:45):
when I say USC going forward, I'm always talking about
University of Southern California. Never in the University of South Carolina,
because come on, let's get just to be clear. So
Rick he funneled payments to coaches or like athletics department accounts,
sometimes looking like charitable donations that were routed through KWF

(25:06):
or other intermediaries, and the payment amounts were all over
the place. Some were like six figures sums for coach bribes.
One Texas tennis coach got one hundred thousand dollars not kidding,
tens or even hundreds of thousands went to USC water
polo accounts. That was a big one. So with that
in place, Rick staff produced these.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Like is this because like do you see, like the
water polo team can like hand out scholarships, so it's
like a way to get your student and they're like,
we don't need all the players to be I think
got a position, will offer you a spot.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
To be on that you get in because you're going
to be on the team. And I can remember like
at Davis there were some like friends of mine who
were on like the swim team. They got early registration
for classes. It was frustrated, unfair. So anyway, so all
that's in place, Rick staff they make these really detailed
fake athletic dossiers and they made up biographies like lists

(26:02):
of honors, lists of tournaments.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
But this isn't the air like the twenty teenth, like
they should have video of Oh.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Hold on, oh for real, there's stats, all these letters
all tailored to the sport and to the recruiting coach's vocabulary.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
And then the dossiers get submitted. Yeah, he's so detailed.
They get sent into the admissions office as like the
evidentiary basis for the recruited athletes candidacy, and like Rick
and his crew figured out how to pad the profiles
so that the coaches and the admissions would accept them.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Because he's basically talking to himself. He's a former coach.
He knows that what he would say legitimately totally.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
So like, you know, we got the paperwork, but you
know you need more proof, as you said, visuals. Yeah.
So when there was no real athletic footage, which was
most of the time, X team was undeterred. They hunted
down images that could pass for the student in question,
and some of them were like publicly available phot those
some from private sources. And if that wasn't a goer,

(27:04):
they would commission photoshopped images that inserted a student's face
into action shots.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
She got a kid who's like kicking a soccer ball
and he's got like a head a little bit too big.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Totally, it's like the wrong lighting. They would produce staged
videos to give the impression of real athletic participation.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
Fall feel on a Saturday.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah. Reverse image searches later showed some photos were lifted
from local news coverage of actual athletes.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Okay, I could see that could be usually filmed from
far away, right, Yeah, he's number twenty six.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
And like the DOJ affidavit included examples where a pole
vaulter's image was reused for an unrelated applicant. Yeah, because
you usually can't see their face when they're like flinging themselves.
Once the coach accepted the dossier and got paid, the
coach formally listed and recommended the applicant as a recruit

(27:58):
to the admissions sub committee. And because recruited athletes are
like a lot of times they get offered admission at
a higher rate than general applicants, that designation was the
key door.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Yeah. I mean it's pretty much just like a royal
road through, right, We're going to approve totally.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
And in some cases, Rick even arranged for the NC
double a eligibility center, registrations or like other administrative items
to make the recruit designation seem legitimate.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah, he's red shirting this year totally.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
So Rick and his team, they coach parents and the
students on like the procedural steps that admissions office are
gonna expect of genuine recruits. Like, everyone's in on it. Everyone.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
This is a huge industry.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Then there's the money, right, don't forget that.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
So I talked a little bit about it, but let's
dive a little deeper. So Rick he controlled the edge,
the Key, the for profit college counseling, and then Key
Worldwide Foundation, the nonprofit the parents they got billed through
a bunch of different channels, fees to the edge, the consulting,
the for profit it or charitable donations to KWF, often

(29:04):
with receipts that made it look like, oh, no goods
or services or exchanged. It's just a goodwill gesture.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
At this point in surprise, there's no like dirty priest
who's like running through my church totally.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
So you know, payments appear as tax deductible gifts. So
when there were then there were the grants and donations
to athletic programs. So kwf's public filings showed grants to
athletic programs and university accounts that matched or approximated amounts
that prosecutors said were bribes. In some cases, the grants

(29:37):
were deposited into university accounts that funded athletics and that
so that's like a plausible philanthropic gift. And the DOJ
and press reporting documented all of these donations to USC,
University of Texas and YU athletics, like tons of them,
And so parents they got receipts from KWF letters thanking

(29:58):
them for their donations.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
By the way, it is the first time I've ever
heard ny use athletics, and you never hear about like.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
A yeah, so, but anyway, they have all this language,
all of this paperwork that masks this quid pro quo.
The paper trails conceal all this bribery from taxes, administer
you know, admissions teams. And then there were operational practices
that made the scheme repeatable and scalable. So this is

(30:29):
how Rick grew the business. He treated the operation like
this repeatable service. So there are fixed fee structures. They
had all these templated dossiers, so once they make one
they can just slide students in. They're not having to
redo the work every time.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
This because they're going to different schools, so people an't
going to see the same thing.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
And you just tinker a little bit here and there.
They have this huge network of vendors, psychologists, photographers, test
proctors that they can just call on repeatedly. He told
clients he could deliver reliably and that made it scalable
to like dozens of families.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Do you think corruption is so popular because everybody, once
they hear about it, they assume this is just how
the world works.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
I've been missing exactly what they all think. So different
actors handle different parts of each contract. So like clinicians
and testing vendors who you know, they get used for accommodations, ringers,
proctors for test execution, Like there's no crossover. They didn't
coordinate with each other and so this like they don't
have direct traceability among the team members. Rick was also

(31:33):
really good at social engineering aspects of things. Well. He
coached parents about what to say or not to say,
and he handled most of the communications with coaches and
testing centers so that they couldn't mess things up. So
there's no you know, the parents might incriminate themselves or
like have inconsistency totally or panic and get stuff wrong.

(31:55):
The bottom line, admissions process is privilege athletes. That's what
they figured out. And so coaches can like they can
legitimately influence these decisions, and Rick's like, all right, let's
exploit it. He had no shortage of clients. By twenty twelve,
some clients were paying at least five grand a year
for periodic visits from Rick to provide advice to their

(32:18):
aspiring students.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Who are like middle school kids.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Guys just stopped by fire and like they said, he
was just like constantly on the move. He's like always,
he's at airports. He's in boardrooms. He's a shark in
the water.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
He's a fixer.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, and he wasn't. He's not just selling his services,
he's selling him. The parents they had to trust him,
and so to that end, he penned a couple of books.
First was Getting in Gaining Admission to your College of Choice.
So his Key worldwide published it. So was like basically
self published in twenty thirteen. It was eighty pages long.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
And it was described as quote, easy to understand and
simple to follow steps to improve the odds of getting
into the college.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Of your choosing, with lots of pictures.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah, well okay. So it was structured as a set
of secrets or tips. According to the Washington Post review,
it contains fifty one page chapters. Those are the fifty secrets, Yes,
with titles like take the hard courses, Get a tutor.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
I love one page chapter.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
This is my favorite one follow application instructions on the
hot tip. That is a good secret tip right there.
Worth every penny. Then he wrote getting in Personal Brands.
A personal brand is essential to gaining admissions to the
college of your choice. That's a long book title. He
also self published that one came out a year after

(33:42):
the first one, and it was all about like personal brand.
So he felt that students had to cultivate like this
identifiable brand to stand out in a college admissions process.
So here's an example quote. A personal brand is essential
to gain admissions to the college of your choe. Like
he doesn't get specific, also super short, geared towards the

(34:04):
same client base, like people who don't read. So the
covers were like a close up of his face.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Of course I was picturing that it was.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
A Rick Moby.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
I studied photo though it's like handed check totally.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Rick's a machine. So he ingratiated himself to the families.
There's a story of one client coming home and there's
Rick like sitting at the kitchen table helping the kids
with their homework. Like he name dropped everybody, and that
was like a big deal. He had big clients.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
What are you doing in my home?

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Get away from my kids. By the mid twenty teens,
Rick was the man if you had money and you
wanted your like mediocre kid to go to a good college.
So a Bay Area couple they gave his charity twy
and fifty shares in Facebook. Why yeah, and they donated
to UCLA before writing off more than a million dollars

(34:54):
in charitable gifts on their taxes so they could get
their kid into UCLA.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
They did so, then they made all of us pay
for it. Yeah, because they paid it as a tax
right off the taxes, and I were not paying.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
They didn't get in the old fashioned way like I did.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Anyway, one client's son was too sick to travel to
one of the appointed SAT testing centers in Houston, Texas.
It's like the special center they had, so Rick made
arrangements for the kid to take the test. They would
take the test to him and he could complete it
at home. But that's not really what happened. Like he thought,

(35:29):
he was, Oh, you're gonna Jimmy, you're going to take
the test at home. He's like okay, and takes it. No,
Rick sent someone to Houston to with you know, a
ringer in to take it for him, and the kid
just filled out a dummy test and didn't know.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
So he conned his own clients into thinking like, yeah,
you're taking a test, job, Jimmy.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
They're so smart. By twenty nineteen, he'd help facilitate there's.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
Some thirty five year old man is showing. I was like, yeah,
I'm Jimmy.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
These all these unethical college admissions for as many as
seven hundred and sixty one family what yes, So two
of those families brought a lot of attention when it
all fell apart. Lori Laughlin and her husband Massimo giawly okay,
who recently divorced. By the way, yeah, who are they

(36:17):
from this?

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Maybe Laughlin. She is an actress best known for her
work on the ABC sitcomfortble House. Massimo is a fashion
designer who founded the brand Massimo. Are you kidding me
that Masmo? He's from la by the way, He's not
like from course, of course, the Massimo brand was cool

(36:40):
in the eighties and nineties streetwear. Then they went on
to be licensed to Target.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Is that what happened? Yeah? Okay, I always wondered how
they fell off. It's fun to see how fashion brands
fall off. They kind of do they.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Do eventually anyway, So they paid Rick five hundred thousand
dollars to get their daughters, Isabella and Olivia into usc
Is quote crew roots.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
These girls are dumb. They We're gonna need some help.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Of them had any experience with rowing.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, I would imagine.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Then there was Felicity Huffman, Right, So she's an actress
best known for her work on the TV comedy drama
also on ABC, which is weird, Desperate Housewives. Yes, so
she won an Emmy Golden Glows.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
She was good, right, she was.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Even nominated for an Oscar for something. And she's married
to William H. Macy. Yeah, she paid Rick fifteen thousand
dollars to have a proctor correct her daughter's SAT answers.
So they got dragged down when Rick went down. But
how did that happen? Good question, interns. Let's take a break,
and when we come back from these compelling ads, i'll

(37:43):
let you know. So Zarin, yes, how did Rick's empire crumble?

Speaker 3 (38:08):
I'm so curious at this point.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
What's crazy is that the FBI didn't start out looking
for college admissions fraud at all. They were not been tracking, no,
not at all. In spring of twenty eighteen, Boston federal
agents were investigating Mariy Tobin, who's an LA based financial executive,
and he was suspected in a securities fraud and insider

(38:31):
trading scheme.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Of course, so.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
According to DOJ filings and then later reported by The
Wall Street Journal. In the La Times, Tobin tried to
earn leniency, tried to like, you know, cut some slack
by giving information about a completely different crime. He's like,
guess what the Yale women's soccer coach asked me for
a bribe to help get my daughter admitted.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
He's like, you guys are busting me. How about this
how we played down with I'll tell you all the criminals.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
I know, way bigger fish for you.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Right now? Do you know how much they're raking me
over the calls for That's got to be a crime,
right that tip?

Speaker 2 (39:07):
The bribery approach by Yale coach Rudy Meredith became the
starting point for what was later code named Operation Varsity
Blues after the film Way to Go Yeah. So the
FBI they confronted Rudy Meredith in April of twenty eighteen,
and he agreed to cooperate. So he explained that he'd
been taking bribes. He wasn't just going out and asking me.

(39:28):
He had been taking bribes from a California college consultant
named Rick Singer to Yeah to label certain applicants as
soccer recruits and then agents the FBI agents had him
make recorded phone calls with Rick to document the pattern
of payments and the code language that Rick used with
his clients. And so Rick's side door pitch is on

(39:52):
those recordings. He said, quote, there's a front door where
you get in on your own, there's a back door
which doesn't really work, and then there's a side door
through me the rickor so Meredith's cooperation gave prosecutors their
first recorded evidence of Rick explaining his criminal model. So

(40:13):
with Meredith's help, the FBI got a Title three wiretap
authorization to monitor Rick's calls, and in the summer and
fall of twenty eighteen, agents recorded dozens of conversations between
Rick and the parents all these parents rich ones, famous ones,
and in the calls, Rick's like he either describes or
he directs, bribes, test fraud, fake athletic profiles, like he's

(40:36):
just spilling it. They caught Rick coaching parents on what
to say if they were questioned about this ever, like
just say it was a donation is one of his quotes.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
He did love He's just shooting holes in his own
legal defense.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
On so he tells about payments that were routed through
his nonprofit key Worldwide Foundation. He talks about which coaches
administrators are going to get which money. He talked about
calibrating test scores to make him believable. He's like bragging like, look,
I've done this thousands of times. Yeah, and they're just

(41:12):
got a checklist, like that's perfect.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
We need that I can get a dog into Yale.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
By late twenty eighteen, prosecutors they had enough to tie
Rick to both the test taking fraud network and the
athletic recruit bribery.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
The FBI dropped yeah, and they're like, oh, I'm getting
it up, getting a raise, I'm getting out of promotion.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
And so they like they just descended on him in
September of twenty eighteen, and he quickly agreed to cooperate.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
I bet he did.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
And he's like, don't indict me right now, let's let's
work on this together. And so he's on. So then
he starts recording his own clients under FBI supervision for
no reason, and that made him CW one Cooperating witness
one in court.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Document them cooperatingness.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
So over the next several months, he made recorded calls
with all these parents and coaches, gathering the direct evidence
that prosecutors later used in court.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
So why would I guess because there's more of them,
and then they're the ones who are paying for the crime,
and he's more of like, Oh, I just run the
illegal casino.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
I'm not the yeah, exactly. So the recordings that's the
backbone of this two hundred page like more than two
hundred pages FBI Affidavid that was unsealed in March of
twenty nineteen. Huh So, by the end of twenty eighteen,
the FBI's Boston Division and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division
they had like jointly built this case. They tracked payments

(42:41):
through the for profit and the nonprofit. They linked them
to specific parents, coaches, exam cheating incidents.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Age you imagine the boards they created.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Oh my god, I.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Loved it, just like all the photos of people and
they're like, Okay, here's all of their counts and here's
the recordings we have. It's all like, oh, tab blinders, yes,
Oh my god, color coding yes.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
They also got Mark Riddell, the test taker, to cooperate.
He admitted to sitting for exams on behalf of the clients.
And they got test center administrators who confessed to taking bribes.
Everyone's just rolling over. So the investigation was kept secret
until March twelfth, twenty nineteen, and at six am Eastern time,

(43:29):
the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts and
the FBI announced charges against fifty defendants and what they
called quote the largest college admission scam ever prosecuted by
the Department of Justice.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
And they essentially went after parents.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, after parents. So press releases and the two hundred
plus page Affidavid. They went live alongside a Boston press
conference led by US Attorney Andrew Lelling and FBI Boston's
Joseph bonavlone time, so Rick Yeah, Rick gets identified as

(44:03):
the mastermind of the operation, and he had secretly pleaded
guilty the day before to four felony counts so racketeering, conspiracy,
money laundering, conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and
obstruction of justice. And it wasn't just the lady from
full House and Felicity Huffman who were caught up in this,
who else? It was prominent CEOs lawyers other Rich Dimwitz

(44:27):
with mid Kids, so Douglas Hodge, former CEO of Pimco.
He paid more than eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars
to have four of his kids admitted as false athletic
recruits at Georgetown USC and loyal l.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Marrimount expect loyal merriamount.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
I won't either, did I. I feel like you could probably
pull that off too.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
Were the Catholics. You can just go in with the
donations and they'll kind of let you on your own.
How a noted day works.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
So yeah, Coamal Abdelaziaz, who was a former win Resorts executive.
He paid three hundred thousand dollars to have his daughter
admitted to USC as a basketball recruit, even though she'd
never played.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
I mean, honestly, at this point, like why did they
mean you have so much money? You got three hundred
thosand dollars? Just put that in an account and he'd
let your kid just have it?

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yes, exactly. John Wilson, founder of Hyannasport Capital. He shelled
out one point two million dollars to have his son
admitted to USC as a water polo recruit and to
get placements for his twin daughters to USC. I cackle
he do. Augustin Hunias Junior, who's a winemaker who Nias

(45:37):
Vineyards forked over three hundred thousand dollars to get his
daughter into USC. Is a fake water polo recruit and
you know, manipulate her.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
SATs should have bought these kids bitcoin and just turned
him loosey got fifteen stoked.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Gordon Kaplan, co chair of Wilkie far and Gallagher law firm.
He paid seventy five thousand dollars to have Ridell correct
his daughter's act answers ethics. William mcglash and junior managing
partner at TPG Growth paid fifty grand for test cheating,
and he planned to give two hundred and fifty thousand

(46:12):
dollars for a fake athletic profile. He wanted to have
his son's act corrected, and he was like planning to
bribe USC. The USC of it all, My god, I.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
Won't think I would think you could be able to
just go right to USC. I'm going to give you
a quarterary.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Let's do this. What in Yeah? Michelle Janavs, heir to
the Hot Pockets fortune. Oh my goodness, handed over three
hundred thousand dollars for test correction and bribed a USC
coach for his daughter's fake beach volleyball profile. Like that's
that is the most pathetic one yet, like details wise,

(46:50):
hot pockets beach.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
And then I just got around. The US National Olympic t.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Never even played. It wasn't just USC, as I've said,
other universities implicated, Yale, Stanford, U c l A, Texas,
Wake Forest, Georgetown, n y U. When the indictment was released,
major media outlets like New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CNN, AP,
they broke the story within minutes, and then the hashtag

(47:17):
varsity blues. Hashtag varsity blues was trending on Twitter all
day long. Yes, exactly the FBI when it was like,
not like a Nazi hangout, probably.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
When hashtags in like the idea of topic.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Yeah. So the FBI's early morning raids, they produced dramatic footage.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
They love those. Oh I know.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
They showed up at Felicity Huffan's house in LA with
guns drawn.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Are you kidding? I'm not kidding, drug her out.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
She was arrested in front of her daughters. Laurie Laughlin
was filming in Vancouver. She flew back and surrendered a
few days later.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Lawyer worked it out.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Coaches at USC, Yale, Stanford text all they got fired
or suspended within hours. Zarin, close your eyes.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
I was wondering.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
I want you to picture it. Yeah. You are Olivia
Jade Jan Newley. You're twenty years old. You are a
successful YouTuber with nearly two million subscribers, an Instagram influencer
and brand ambassador for Sephora, Amazon, Tresame, and Princess Poll.

(48:32):
You are a first year student at usc Your parents
are full house actress Lori Laughlin and fashion designer Massimo
Jan Newly. It's March twelfth, twenty nineteen, and you're currently
on a yacht in the Bahamas on vacation with your
friend Gianna Gianna Caruso, daughter of Rick Caruso, billionaire developer

(48:53):
and chair of the University of Southern California's Board of Trustees.
It's early in the morning and you're still asleep and
your luck's sweet on the yacht. The gentle lapping of
the waves can be heard outside your porthole window. There's
a gentle knock at your door. You look at the
bedside clock. Six in the morning. I'm still sleeping, you
call out. The knocking gets more insistent. Ugh, come in,

(49:18):
you shout as you sit up and pull the comforter
around you. Your friend Gianna comes rushing into your room,
holding out her iPad. You can hear commotion beyond her,
out in the common areas. Oh my god, Olivia, Oh
my god. You start to panic. Is someone hurt? Did
someone dies? Everything okay? No one is hurt, no one died,
But everything is not okay. Gianna shoves her iPad in

(49:40):
your face and you read the CNN page in front
of you. You can't believe your eyes. Rick Singer's empire
has fallen and taken your parents with it. Is this true?
Your friend asks. You don't know how to answer. You
knew Rick had juiced up some story about you and
your sister rowing crew in order to get into USC.
You'd never really done it, crewe. But who cares, she thought.

(50:02):
You scroll down the page and you see yourself in
a video clip. It's from one of your YouTube videos.
You're joking about not caring much about school. Oh crap,
Gianna's phone rings. It's my dad, she says, Hi, Yeah,
I woke her up. I told her calm down. Okay,
I'll let her know. Gianna stares at you. This is

(50:23):
looking really bad for my dad. She says, duh, same
for me, you say. Gianna tells you that the ship
is heading immediately for Port. Her dad has arranged for
a private jet to take you back to La. Your
mom's in Vancouver and hasn't been arrested yet. Your dad
is at the house in bel Air waiting for agents
to arrive and take him away. You're scared to look

(50:44):
at your own phone. You reach down into your bag
on the floor and fish it out. You've never seen
so many message and voicemail and app notifications in your life.
You look up at Gianna. Everyone does this. You tell her.
She looks away. You feel afraid and embarrassed, but you
get up and you start to pack your bag as
you feel the engines in the yacht begin to steer

(51:05):
the ship to Port. This is a nightmare, you think.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Do you know that I've seen and I've been in
a room with this girl?

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Really?

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Rick Caruso, he goes east to go to I used
to go to Saint Monica's church in Santa Monica, the
Catholic church, and go there with my mother. In the
front row would be Rick Caruso, his kids, and Arnold
Schwartzenegger and they would all be there and like like
swanning around like we were in the like you know,
the medicis where it's like, oh, all the rich people
in the front row. And Crusoe loved it, and he
had his sons or like these tall and that I

(51:35):
know the daughters, like I know exactly who this.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Girl is is, poor little bitch good I.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
Love how get her off my boat so bad?

Speaker 2 (51:48):
I have zero sympathy for any of these people.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
I know you zero.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
So USC University of Southern California was central to the scandal,
obviously eight employees several which is get implicated. They immediately
placed a hold on all students connected to Rick's scheme,
and then they did this like huge internal review. They
fired senior administrators in the athletic department. Later in twenty twenty,

(52:15):
the university sued Rick and all the parents to recover damages.
And then they created a new office of Ethics and Compliance.
Late and for Yale women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith resigned. Obviously,
Yale revoked the admission of the student's link to his bribe.
President Peter Salive announced an external review of athletics recruiting procedures.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
I wonder if they look back to see how many
students came through and like if they repealed any degrees
they'd given out.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
I don't know. I do know that I think it
was my cousin who knew someone who got they got yanked.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
Really yeah, I love this.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
At Walligh School, so over. At Stanford, sailing coach John
Vandermere pleted guilty. Stanford disbanded the sailing team fundraising arm
not the team. The university release statements reaffirming like we
ow it a zero tolerance for admissions for sure. Sure,

(53:14):
The University of California System UCLA announced an internal audit
of athletic admissions and they required third party verification of
recruit credentials. Netflix fast trackted documentary Operation Versity Blues the
college admission scandal that was in twenty twenty one, and
they used actors to reenact all the wiretap calls. Amazon

(53:38):
and eBay briefly took rix to self published books off
the market because like demand spike for these curiosities.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
Ethical. Yes.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Felicity Huffman poleted guilty really quickly in May have twenty
nineteen to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and on a
services fraud. She got sentenced September of twenty nineteen to
fourteen days in prison, thirty thousand dollars fine, and two
hundred and fifty hours of community service. So she like
made this like tearful apology and then she did that

(54:10):
short prison stay. So some are like, Oh, she's really accountable,
and others are like, that's.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
It yet in jail.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yeah, so Lur and Massimo they initially fought the charges
and that was like, there's all this crazy tabloid coverage,
but then they pleaded guilty in twenty twenty. Yeah, Laughlin
got two months, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine,
one hundred hours of community service. Massimo got five months,

(54:37):
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine, two hundred and
fifty hours community service behind. I don't think either one
of them did the full time obviously, especially like in California,
they cut it short for rich people. Olivia Jade lost
her YouTube sponsorships Sephora Tresame. Later she went back online
and like she shut everything down and she was like

(54:59):
trying to lay really low. But then she went on
Red Table Talk Jenny Yes Jaden Jada Pinkett Smith to
discuss the scandal. The image of US rowing machines and
the fact that she was literally on a USC trustee's
yacht when the story broke became like shorthand for privilege.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
Totally and not just anyone but the chairman, but the chairman,
Rick Caruso, the Americana, the Yeah, the grove, like so
many la iconic Dellionaire.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah. Pretty much. All the other defendants pleaded guilty or
were convicted at trial, except for Robert Zangrillo, founder of
Dragon Global Investments. He paid two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars for his daughter's fake USC application as a design major,
and he stalled his case and then received a pardon

(55:52):
from then President Trump in January twenty twenty one, just
before he left office. So he got pardoned and Rick.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
Oh, I guess it was federal charges, ye, charger, I.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Don't think what of Rick. Rick remained free under cooperation
agreements until sentencing. Like just ahead of sentencing, he submitted
to the court he wrote out quote, 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. I acknowledge

(56:27):
that I am fully responsible for my crimes by ignoring
what was morally, ethically and legally right in favor of
winning what I perceived was the college admissions game. I've
lost everything.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
He's like my shame or remorse and regret at getting caught.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Getting caughtrect So January of twenty twenty three, he got
sentenced to forty two months in federal prison three years
of supervised release. They had him paid nineteen million dollars.
Half his restitution to the irs and the other half
is forfeitures of money and assets. And so he reported
to the Bureau of Prisons and then was later transferred

(57:03):
to a halfway house in twenty twenty four. So, according
to prosecutors, Rick collected more than twenty five million dollars
from his clients. He paid bribes totaling more than seven million,
and he used more than fifteen million dollars of his
client's money for his own benefit.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
And he had to either give that back or come
up restitution.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
July of twenty twenty five, he's back in the news.
He was back to advising students. If you can believe.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
It, are you the shamelessness of that?

Speaker 2 (57:35):
His sister I guess started a company, and there were
questions about whether this should be allowed. Yeah, but a
district judge ruled this or even pursued he could work
in college admissions advising, but he had to post a
two hundred and seventy word disclaimer explaining the charges against
him and his guilty plea prominently on his website. There

(57:57):
are people like the parents are like, oh so it works,
It's good.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Yeah, this guy's.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
In a statement on the id Future Star website, he says,
in part quote, I'm not afraid to tell people who
I am, and then I made a mistake, took full responsibility,
and want to share my expertise, passion, and desire to
help shape our next generation's leaders by helping each find
a college and career that's the right choice for each individual.

(58:27):
The important values I learned in my journey is to
stay away from the gray areas and college admissions and
institutional advancement. That I will not be traveling down the
uneven side of the road, even when the coast looks clear,
but I will fiercely seek the proper guidance and support
from expert counsel.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
I'm surprised you didn't find God.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
I mean, right, was Aaron, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 3 (58:51):
My delight at people like Rick Caruso he dragged into
this because like it feels like, you know, in our
world today, corruption is the coin of the realms. It
feels like I'm sure that some of these people felt
like I thought everyone was doing this, and it feels
like everyone's doing this. So for someone like him to
be drug in because I know he would have hated that, yes,

(59:12):
And I feel bad. I feel bad for myself that
I even have any joy in my heart at that,
but I do like it.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
I just kept thinking about you know when she Olivia
Jade is like everyone's doing it, yeah, And in my mind,
I'm just flashing to like I'm flashing like a high
school senior who's like a first one in the family
to go to college and who's studying like.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Crazy, doesn't even have a sleepy dave.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Doesn't have a sleepy dave, and it's just working so
hard and like do it, like getting like a crazy
over four point zero gpa and acing tests and hoping
and praying they can get scholarships and you know, pell
grants or something like in order to make this work
and that everyone in their family's behind them in like

(59:55):
an honest and true way, that this is this great
hope and they're so proud of this student and they're
gonna be on pins and needles whether they get into
these colleges. But then can I afford it? Because it's
like you can get scholarships that are going to cover
the tuition and stuff, but it's the cost of living
and if you have to move somewhere, and you think
of like how desperate and anxiety producing that is. And

(01:00:19):
then you got these kids who are just like so
up their own rears and they're just they put no
effort in, and then we just buy it by it,
by it. It's like the two severe ends of our
society where we keep fracturing more and more of like
the super wealthy can do whatever they want and everyone

(01:00:39):
else is just like scraping.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Meritocracy has absolutely and that student.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
That first in the family to go, the one who
struggles and who will get into college and succeed. Then
they if they take out loans, they're gonna be paying
that back. They're gonna get no loan forgiveness now, and
they're gonna be just like trying to get a job
in an economy that's you know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Difficult working for one of these people who.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Start working and Rick crusoes. Yeah, the answering phones. Yeah,
so anyway, that's mine. I need to talk back after that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
I w.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Chap brother.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
I'm Marning Tuia.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
Hey, this is a long time listener and I have
decided that you guys need to start a good Reads
library of all.

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
Of the what do you call them authors who have
gone to jail or half stories so that we can
keep up and read along.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
I love that you do.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
Need the ridiculous A really good idea. Yeah, the Incarcerated
Authors Club.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
I think that's good. We'll work on. Thank you for
the suggestion. What squealing tires.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
In the back? That was cool.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
That's it for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at ridiculous Crime on
Blue Sky Instagram. We're on YouTube at ridiculous Crime, pod email,
ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Most importantly, leave a
talkback on the free iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime

(01:02:33):
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and
edited by usc Head photoshop coach Dave Cousten, starring Annalise
Rutger as Judith. Research is by Yale's sailing champion Marissa
Brown and Stanford jousting scholar Jabari Davis. The theme song
is by Heeled Business College basketball team recruits Thomas Lee

(01:02:53):
and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five
hundred guests hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre.
Executive producers are sat Test proctor for hire Ben Bollen
and High School test taker impersonator Noel Brown. Ridicous Crime,

(01:03:17):
Say It One More Time Piquious Crime.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.