March13,2019

On March 12, FBI started investigation into fifty wealthy celebrities who bribed the concerned coaches and administrators of elite universities for their children to get admission to these top schools, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles, etc. In the case the key man is William “Rick” Singer, a Southern California business executive, who founded Edge College & Career Network and the Key Worldwide Foundation. According to the Department of Justice, Singer would try every means to make these wealthy parents’ dream come true. He even paid other people, including indicted Mark Riddell, to help students to cheat in ACT and SAT tests if their parents sent a big sum of money via the Key World Foundation in advance. 

Among the wealthy parents are Lori Loughlin, Full House’s Aunt Becky, and her husband Mossimo Giannulli, clothing designer. The couple bribed Singer and Donna Heinel, USC senior associate athletic director to help their daughters enter USC. The sum of the bribery was over $550,000 for each daughter. The FBI mentions that Singer got $15,000 from Felicity Huffman, actress of Desperate Housewives, and her husband. Another case is Gamal Abdelaziz, a casino executive and Las Vegas resident. In 2017, Singer and Donna Heinel, senior associate director at the University of Southern California, also got Gamal’s daughter admitted to USC as a basketball player but in fact she didn’t have to play basketball. Donna Heinel could get a bribe of roughly $20,000 per month.