California couple agrees to guilty pleas in college scam

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

BOSTON (AP) — A California couple agreed Friday to plead guilty to paying $250,000 to get their daughter into the University of Southern California as a fake volleyball recruit.

Diane Blake and Todd Blake will plead guilty in front of a judge at a future date, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston said in a statement Friday. The couple from Ross, California, had initially pleaded not guilty, news outlets previously reported.

The couple was accused of tapping William “Rick” Singer, who authorities say was mastermind behind the sweeping nationwide scheme, to facilitate their daughter’s admission into USC. According to the indictment against the couple posted on the U.S. attorney’s website, Todd Blake sent a check for $50,000 to USC Women’s Athletics and wired $200,000 to a sham charity set up by Singer.

USC spokesperson Lauren Bartlett said in an email that the university would not comment the case.



FILE - This March 12, 2019, file photo shows the University Village area of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. A California couple has agreed to plead guilty to paying $250,000 to get their daughter into the University of Southern California as a fake volleyball recruit. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/e51e80ebda957a13f5b3b3ac848a24ea

[bluewater]

1. Actually donating $250K would not have got their kid into USC?

So, instead of doing the illegal scam, if they actually donated the $250K to USC that would not have got their kid into that PRIVATE university?

Woah.

Times must be hard for the 1%. lol

[LuckyLib]

2. Folks don't seem to realize that USC is not all that.

Meh.

[regnaD kciN]

4. When I lived down there, it was known as the "University of Spoiled Children"...

...and was considered a place for rich kids who didn't have the grades and test scores to get into U.C.L.A. (which, let us remember, is a state school -- and, while quite good, isn't even the flagship of the system).

I can imagine rich, ambitious parents pulling strings to get their kid into Harvard, Princeton, or Stanford, but having to do so for U.S.C. speaks not only to their (lack of) confidence about their child's ability to succeed in college in the first place, but to their own ignorance of what a "top-flight college" really is.

[customerserviceguy]

3. While I'm glad to hear about

all of these rich-ass parent prosecutions, I still am waiting to hear the rest of the story.

What is being done to penalize those who took the bribes? And are colleges making changes about non-money sports coaches being able to shoehorn a kid into a school? I exempt the money sports (football and basketball) because the coaching staff already has plenty of reasons to not put a bench-warmer on a team in exchange for a bribe.