Key quotes from court documents on admissions bribery scheme
FILE - This Sept. 9, 2016 photo shows Harkness Tower on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Conn. Dozens of people were charged Tuesday, March 12, 2019, in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation's most elite schools. The coaches worked at such schools as Yale, Wake Forest, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. A former Yale soccer coach pleaded guilty and helped build the case against others. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)
Hollywood stars, coaches and others have been charged in a wide-ranging bribery scheme that allowed wealthy parents to get their children into elite colleges.
Prosecutors said parents paid an admissions consulting company founded by William "Rick" Singer, who pleaded guilty in Boston on Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Here are key excerpts from court documents outlining the allegations:
"Parents paid Singer approximately $25 million over the period 2011 through February 2019 to bribe coaches and university administrators to designate their children as recruited athletes, or other favored admissions categories, in violation of the duty of honest services the coaches and administrators owed to their employers, thereby facilitating the children's admission to the Universities." — Federal indictment
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"To facilitate the cheating, Singer counseled parents to seek extended time on the exams, including by having their children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain medical documentation that ACT, Inc. and the College Board typically required before granting students extended time." — Federal indictment
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"In many instances, the students taking the exams were unaware that their parents had arranged for this cheating." — Affidavit by FBI Special Agent Laura Smith in Boston
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"Okay, so, who we are — what we do is we help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school. ... That they want guarantees, they want this thing done. They don't want to be messing around with this thing. And so they want in at certain schools. And I've created this side door in." — A witness who participated in the cheating scheme to a client in wiretapped call, cited in the affidavit
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"I know this is craziness, I know it is. And then I need you to get him into USC, and then I need you to cure cancer and (make peace) in the Middle East." — Jane Buckingham , CEO of a boutique marketing company in Los Angeles, in a wiretapped call, cited in the affidavit
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"I can make scores happen, and nobody on the planet can get scores to happen. She won't even know that it happened. It will happen as though, she will think that she's really super smart, and she got lucky on a test, and you got a score now." — A witness who participated in the cheating scheme to a client in wiretapped call, cited in the affidavit