College Admissions Scandal Mastermind Gets 3.5 Years In Prison

BOSTON, MA — Rick Singer, the mastermind behind the Operation Varsity Blues College Admissions Scandal whose case was built by Boston prosecutors, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison Wednesday afternoon, according to reporters tweeting in real time from the courtroom.

The sentence falls short of that which was recommended by prosecutors from the the United States District Court District of Massachusetts, who asked that he spend 6 years in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Singer's sentencing comes years after he entered his guilty plea in March 2019 to charges of racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud US, and obstruction of justice.

For a decade, Singer operated his college counseling and preparation business, “The Key,”as well as the non-profit entity that purported to provide educational and self-enrichment programs for disadvantaged youth, The Key Worldwide Foundation, as a front to take more than $25 million from his clients who asked for assurance that their children be admitted into top colleges, according to the memo.

Singer paid bribes totaling more than $7 million to test proctors and administrators to cheat on college entrance exams and college athletic coaches to fabricate students' credentials, prosecutors said.

In the process, Singer transferred, spent, or otherwise used more than $15 million of his clients’ payments, which were often disguised as charitable donations, for his own benefit, according to prosecutors.

"We help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids in school," Singer bragged as he pitched one of his clients on a call recorded by the FBI. "They want guarantees. They want this thing done."

Singer's dozens of clients, which included actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, went to Singer with hopes that they could take advantage of his "back door" methods to get their children into highly-selective schools like Yale, Georgetown and USC.

Before Wednesday, the toughest punishment relating to the scandal had gone to former Georgetown University tennis coach Gordon Ernst, who got 2 1/2 years in prison for pocketing more than $3 million in bribes.

Meanwhile, Singer, who orchestrated and led the scheme, "is far and away the most culpable of the Varsity Blues defendants – by orders of magnitude – and is therefore deserving of the longest sentence," the government wrote in a memo released in December.

Authorities in Boston began investigating the scheme after an executive under scrutiny for an unrelated securities fraud scheme told investigators that a Yale soccer coach had offered to help his daughter get into the school in exchange for cash. The Yale coach led authorities to Singer, whose cooperation unraveled the sprawling scandal.

In a letter to the judge, Singer blamed his actions on his “winning at all costs” attitude, which he said was caused in part by suppressed childhood trauma. His lawyer is requesting three years of probation, or if the judge deems prison time necessary, six months behind bars.

“By ignoring what was morally, ethically, and legally right in favor of winning what I perceived was the college admissions ‘game,’ I have lost everything,” Singer wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.