Garage Sale Mystery: Varsity Blues
When a college admissions counselor turns up dead in an antique steamer trunk, Jenn suspects foul play.
The Collegians
An FBI agent investigating the largest college fraud ever unknowingly lives across the street from the perpetrators. The movies last line, “… not even Oberlin?” is as devastating as anything spoken aloud by man.
LOL. Objection - I *went *to Oberlin!
I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Lori and Butthead yell at their kids for doing something behind their backs.
A few choice bits from an article by People magazine:
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
I call this the “everyone else is doing it!” defense. I don’t think that works to get you out of consequences either. And no, you selfish twit, not everyone else is doing it, even among those who could.
From my viewpoint a “fair outcome” is jail time for her. The rules need to apply to the wealthy and famous, too.
And denial runs strong here. Her attorney wasn’t able to talk sense into her? Maybe she knew better than her lawyer.
The rules don’t and never have, but they can’t be bent too far or the people start to complain.
The rules aren’t and never have been fair . . .
Is your viewpoint based on a knowledge of the legal precedents in this type of case? Because otherwise, I question how “fair” you’re really being. These people aren’t likely to reoffend, weren’t bribing public officials and weren’t furthering some other criminal act with their bribery. Jail time seems like a little much.
In what way is the University of Texas Tennis Coach not a “public official”? I get he’s not elected, but he still is supposed to act in the public’s interest in an official, if limited, capacity. And he abused that power.
(Video news report starts, so you may wish to turn down the sound before clicking)
USC is a private university.
Aside: I was reading an article about how women’s rowing is a good target for this scam because universities use it as a counterweight in title IX calculations and thus have really more slots than they need.
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
A guidance counselor and the school where Loughlin’s kids went noticed that something was fishy when their second kid said that she was on the crew team. The counselor notified USC and when Loughlin and her husband found out they were enraged. They went to the school and terrorized the counselor and, threatened with the loss of her career, had to contact USC and back off on her claim. I suppose they aren’t being charged for something specific to that but it’s an aggravating factor when considering sentencing.
In addition there is the tax fraud. First offenders go to prison for that all of the time.
Most people use the word “terrorize” with threats of violence, not career.
I know Huffman disguised her payment as a charity donation- did the others as well? Seems a crazy extra risk to take. Of course, it’s only tax fraud if she tried to claim it.
I’m not certain what “most people” would say but the dictionary says it means to create an extreme state of fear or distress. Loss of career would qualify.
Well, when a judge is deciding sentencing, I have my doubts they’ll use the word “terrorizing” when describing her actions towards the counselor. Since we’re talking about criminal charges, I think it improper to casually use that word here.
It was an essential part of the scheme. The guy in charge created a fraudulent nonprofit, Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF), and had the parents make their payment to the foundation. Employees of KWF then sent letters to the parents saying that no goods or services were exchanged for the payments, allowing them to claim the charitable deduction.
I read transcripts of several phone calls from the parents in which they asked or were told specifically about the charitable donation aspect.
On the one hand, this is a drop in the bucket of national problems. Something like 1% of colleges are these highly selective schools and a tiny fraction of admissions to those are these kind of manipulated/fradulent admissions. I’d rather see us spending our energy on re-vamping testing requirements or financial guidance, or even post-college career placement programs rather than ferretting out every child of privilege who was “coached” into a select college program.
On the other hand, this does reveal serious cracks in our social fabric where the moneyed and famous(particularly celebrities, which Americans worship for some reason) can ignore social norms with virtual impunity. And that’s a problem for all of us because it runs up and down the spine of our social networks. Celebrities and the wealthy get away with murder in some cases. “What’s your super power?” “I’m rich.” begins to sound less like dialogue from a cheesy movie and more like a sad commentary on our society.
Enjoy,
Steven
But why are none of the stories mentioning tax evasion? I find it hard to believe that the IRS doesn’t want to get its lumps in.
Eta: my mistake, one of them has been charged with IRS related stuff. Bruce Isackson
Well, the judge may not use the work “terrorizing” - but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been a crime. For example in New York, the crime of coercion in the third degree consists of
So if they made her fear that she would lose her job if she didn’t comply with their demands to contact USC and recant , that would qualify as “coercion” in NY. California very likely has a similar law, although the crime may have a different name.
Can’t edit for some reason - that should be "that could qualify as “coercion” in NY. "