Well, she’s not accepting the plea deal, so let’s see if they charge her with coercion. I doubt that law is often applied to parents threatening their kids’ teachers and soccer coaches with firing.
Didn’t Carmela Soprano do something like that for her daughter…?
I doubt that they will. But of course no one really thinks that they should. This hijack started when you got all semantic on us.
The tax evasion thing, as you noted, is only a crime if they used the “donation” as a tax write off. The fact that they gave money to a fake charity I itself isn’t a legal issue.
Do you have a mouse in your pocket? Because I merely thought “terrorised” was a little hyperbolic on your part.
Whatever. I like you, dude. Let’s stop bickering over this.
Plus, there is more news today. The dude who took tests for the kids is going to plead guilty in Federal court to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Consider it dropped.
Kid could have had a bright future. I mean, he probably aced his own SAT.
I wonder if only the one Texas tennis coach has been charged is because he is the only one at a public university. Seems little doubt coaches at other schools were outed to the feds.
Sure it is, that’s why they’re being indicted for money laundering. If you commit a crime (bribing the coaches), and do something to conceal the money transfer associated with the crime, that’s money laundering. Whether or not they claimed a deduction on their taxes doesn’t affect the laundering charge. The mere fact they attempted to conceal the money makes it a crime. If William Singer had instead set up a company that sold toilet paper, and you paid him and the bribe money by purchasing truck loads of toilet paper, but he never actually gave you any toilet paper (or sold you toilet paper at $1000/roll), that would still be money laundering.
I guess “greed knows no bounds” and “in for a penny, in for a pound” but my god they could have limited their downside more. Set up a “college admissions help” company not a charity. Only deal with private universities.
I don’t think there’s much difference in the illegality or the prosecutions between public and private schools.
First of all, yes, having wholesome Aunt Becky be involved in an ethics scandal means eyeballs and clicks. So who cares if only two or three minor showbiz families are involved, they will be the faces. Besides, in our day and age you are only succesful/important if you’re on TV.
ISTM it’s not just “entitlement” as most of us know it, it’s another related factor: about ensuring that the kids will have the “right” boxes checked so they can remain in the upper social tier. Having money in LA or NY is not good enough, you have to become a part of the right “class” of people, and those people go to a specific set of “good schools”. So we have a case where you may be succesful as an actor or a money manager, but down deep you want your kid to grow to be *a peer of the CEO’s kids. *
(Plus, if you want them to have the fallback, if they one day crash financially at celebritying, to find a good job, being a fellow Alum from a Good School means a better chance at landing it than just your local State school.)
The CEO donates millions for a lab AND is an Alumnus, his kids get in… while the rich-but-not-THAT-rich then feel they have to do something so their kids make it too.
Bribing a public official is a different kettle of fish, from what I understand. The sentencing guidelines are higher.
Well they did hedge their bets with the charity’s mission statement:
OK, that’s true but the rest of the crimes (falsely claiming a charitable deduction, mail fraud, etc) apply either way.
That counts as entitlement in my book. But six of bribes, half a dozen of payoffs.
Someone in a letter to the Times noted that when a zillionaire donates a dorm or building, the students at the university benefit. In this scheme no one benefits except the bribee. Donations are also overt, not covert.
And these kids would never have had a problem with networking, since they got rich parents to smooth the way for them. Now, maybe not so much.
Change “underprivileged” to “underperforming” and it’s the god’s honest truth.
I’ve known poor people and brown people for whom the same could be said of various acts, and yet they went away for years, lost everything, etc. By getting their kids these slots some other kid - perhaps more deserving - was denied.
And on what basis do you think these people “aren’t likely to reoffend”? When someone hasn’t a clue that bribery and money laundry and lying on a college application is wrong what’s going to stop them breaking some other law they find inconvenient?
I think the solution to over incarceration is less incarceration. What do you expect me to say to that?
Well, I just assumed most of them only did it out of parental craziness. Maybe they’re rotten to the core.
How about “appropriate incarceration”?
Insanity defenses rarely work, even if it is euphenized as “parental craziness”. The vast majority of parents who get their kids into college manage to do so without breaking the law, even if they have some money and influence. “Parental craziness” is not a good excuse and if they’re that crazy maybe they need to have any younger children removed from their custody for the best interests of both their child and society. Because for damn sure they didn’t do Olivia Jade any favors by these stunts, in fact, they hurt the business/employment the kid already had.
These are not victimless crimes. The guilty should be made an example to discourage others from being equally crazy.
Amazing how people can find excuses for why rich people shouldn’t go to jail.
Just absolutely amazing.
They did a crime. Send them to jail. That they are rich makes it even more important to demonstrate the system is fair.
But that’s the thing that makes it grating: it’s not *just *the entitlement, it’s the *insecurity *on the part of those parents. The next generation is well connected and economically comfortable, they don’t *need *to be forced to be classmates of the CEO’s son… but the parents had absorbed the mindset that their offspring’s lack of (a) a degree (b) from “the right schools” would condemn them to always be looked down upon, and count as a Parenting Fail, (which is already pernicious part of the whole college game for everyone in the USA) and then leads to the whole “wouldn’t any other parent do this” deal…
Also… specifically on the showbiz side’s frontwoman of this case, Olivia Jade, it probably also gnawed at her parents, who by most signs worked hard to get where they were, that their child may be looked down upon as “just another vapid pretty face”. I see the contrast to the Kardashians or Paris Hilton, where there seemingly was no urge to fabricate a persona of “yes, the girl is college material”: they knew they would be doing fabulously by any standard on account of family wealth and connections so sure, go ahead and do your own branding thing, who cares if randos on the internet call you vapid (or slut-shame you), you are winning. However, Olivia Jade was barely at best B-list YouTube/Instagram sponsored face, nowhere in that league, and the parents may have worried it would not last. However it seems pretty obvious in hindsight that the sensible thing to do woudl have been to let her maximize returns from what brand she did have while she had it.