College admissions are really tough and most especially to the most prestigious schools, since being a student to their institution requires high standards and exceptional abilities. Even the most famous and wealthiest parents cannot be guaranteed that their children have the chance to enter these schools. As a result, a lot of them opted to use illegal means. In today's trending news, one of the biggest college admission bribery scams has been unfolded, and these famous parents are yet to face the authorities.
On Wednesday, March 13 the actress famous for the character of Aunt Becky in the 1980s and '90s sitcom Full House, Lori Loughlin has turned herself into the federal authorities as she was accused of email fraud in connection to a college admission bribery scam. Her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli was initially arrested but was released for a $1 million bond as ordered by a judge in Los Angeles courtroom on Tuesday. Along with Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, the Emmy-winning star of ABC's Desperate Housewives were arrested by midday Tuesday.
With nearly 50 personalities, high-profile businessmen and athletic coaches have been entrapped from conspiring with university admissions and coaches to fake test scores, with consultants who make their children look like star athletes to boost their chances of getting accepted. These consultants also hire ringers to take college entrance exams for students and paid off insiders at testing centers to correct students' answers. Prosecutors are accusing wealthy parents such as Loughlin of paying between $200,000 and $6.5 million to get their children into elite universities.
The man behind the scheme was admission consultant William Singer, founder of the Edge College & Career Network of Newport Beach and his foundation Key Worldwide Foundation, assisted Lori Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade into the University of Southern California "as a recruited crew coxswain, even though she did not row competitively or otherwise participate in crew," court documents revealed. Now schools like Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, USC and UCLA have been cooperative in the investigation and has already relieved all those connected with the scam. Students, however, were not charged, with authorities saying that in many cases the teenagers were unaware of what was going on. Several of the colleges involved made no mention of taking any action against the students.
Lori Loughlin was taken into custody on Wednesday by FBI agents, according to a spokesperson for the agency. She will be booked at the Metropolitan Detention Center and is expected to appear before a federal magistrate at 2:00 p.m. at U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles. Loughlin's attorney arranged with prosecutors on Tuesday to allow her to travel to Vancouver for work as a condition of her bond.
