I doubt it. It’s a non-violent white collar crime. People can tsk tsk at her but it’s not as though the typical Hallmark Channel viewer had their kid lose a place at USC because of her. She’s an attractive white woman with a history of acting in squeaky clean roles and people want to project being a “good person” on her. If she’s found guilty, she’ll act contrite and get a gig designing purses or jewelry to get her face on television again and start landing roles before you know it. Tons of celebrities have rehabbed themselves for far worse stuff.
You had me until this one. Why wouldn’t you tell her the maximum sentence, but preface it with what you said here. Say, “Look, the maximum sentence for this crime is 14 years, but typically for the first offense, it is a small fine. It is unlikely in the extreme that you would get anywhere near 14 years, or indeed any jail time at all, but that is what the book says, so I felt I needed to inform you of that.”?
More significantly, the Christian Republican community has its own sort of ecosystem, which is capable of granting people a certain status that allows them to make a living even after violating the laws of secular society.
This has always sounded like a typical “I have a friend of a friend that can help” situations.
Somebody probably told Lori that a friends child with low SAT scores had gotten into USC. Lori naturally asks how? She’s put in touch with someone and told some vague details. Bottom line, make a payment and it will happen. Both kids enroll at USC and life goes on.
I understand she broke the law. This was not a crime demanding a prison sentence. Far from it. Imho.
She was a consumer of an illegal operation. She didn’t plan or plot anything.
Think of a drug transaction. The buyer at most, gets busted for possession of the drug bought. The serious charges go against the chain of people that made it available for sale.
She took a tax write off for ‘donating’ $500,000 to Singer’s Key Foundation, which was a non profit, that claimed it’s mission was helping underserved children get into college. So yeah, she’s screwed.
According to the legal experts who have been commenting on the case, the feds have a process. First they charged her with fraud, then 30 days after she rejected the plea bargain, they added additional charges of money laundering, then apparently she (& others who have rejected the plea) will be charged with tax fraud and ‘other charges’.
It appears that parents in the LA area who have dealt with Singer are now sweating bricks about when they will be charged. High price lawyers there are doing quite well.
It appears that some parents there who did not cheat are enjoying this quite a bit.
Regarding the parents who paid $6.5 million to get their daughter into Stanford, would a straight, open donation of that much be enough to get her admitted? And if the answer is no, surely there are plenty of schools that would happily take that much for a guaranteed admission.