Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Biggest College Admissions Scandal In History - The Rick Singer / Aunt Becky story

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Actress Lori Loughlin—best known as "Aunt Becky" from Full House—and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, became central figures in the "Operation Varsity Blues" college admissions scandal. They paid to have their two daughters fraudulently admitted to the University of Southern California as rowing recruits, despite neither participating in the sport. Initially pleading not guilty, the couple later accepted plea deals in 2020

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After three months, plan auto renews and 1299 a month, terms apply. Remember when Aunt Becky from Full House went to prison? Well, it all starts with this guy, Rick. And Rick is 51 during this time, living in Los Angeles, and bro is pretty successful. He runs a college counseling business where he helps high school students with their college applications and tries to get them into a good university. But apparently the dude's success just isn't enough, because he wants to be rich. And one day in 2011, one of the one of the first one of the dude's success just isn't enough, because he wants to be rich.

And one day in 2011, one of his best students keeps failing his practice SAT tests, no matter how much he studies. And so that is when Rick gets an idea that's going to change his life forever. Why not just help the student cheat his way into college? What could possibly go wrong? And so Rick goes and he pays one of the people who chaperones the test. And this chaperone secretly corrects the student's answers. And so this dumb-ass student ends up getting a perfect score, and they ultimately get into the college they want. And so now Rick knows he's hit the jackpot.

His idea worked. He is on to something big. And so he decides to do it again for another student, and then again, and then again. And he just keeps helping high school students out using the same idea, cheating in various ways to help them get into the university they want. And he charges a lot of money for this service. hundreds of thousands of dollars. And over time, Rick and his college counseling business become the go-to place for this scam.

And like wealthy parents will come to him and they'll be like, can you help my kid cheat his way into a top university? And Rick will be like, I, that'll be $500 grand. Oh, and he doesn't just help the kids cheat on their SAT exams. Sometimes he straight up bribes people at the school. Like he's bribing school admins, he's bribing coaches, he's bribing anyone who can get his client's kid into that university.

And let me tell you, business is booming for Rick. He is slowly becoming rich just like he wanted. And after a few years of doing this, he builds up a clientele of super wealthy people. And at some point, he starts working with this woman, Lori Lachlan, aka Aunt Becky. And she's obviously the actress who played Aunt Becky on Full House in the 80s and 90s, and then again in the more recent reboot. And Rick also starts working with her husband, this guy, Massimo. And Masimo's a famous fashion designer.

You've probably seen his clothing line in Target. So all that is to say, Aunt Becky and Masimo are super rich. And they have two teenage daughters, and they want these girls to go to a top university real bad. Specifically, they want to get them into USC. And at some point, they hit up Rick, and they request his chance. cheating college admission services. And Rick is like, sure, I can get your daughters into USC,

and he charges them a half a million dollars for this service. And Rick is like real smooth about this service. Like he funnels the money through a fake charity he set up and everything. He makes it all look real legit. But anyway, Aunt Becky and Mossimo hire Rick for his services. But here's the interesting thing, though. One of their teenage daughters is actually an influencer. Her name's Olivia. And Olivia is really popular online. almost 2 million followers on YouTube, 1.3 million followers on Instagram, 700,000 followers on TikTok. And she normally does just like a lot of beauty and fashion stuff and vlogs, stuff like that. And she even has her own color palette with Sephora, the makeup brand.

So she's doing really well for herself as an influencer, especially considering she's like 18 years old during this time. And from what I can tell, Olivia's not really all that interested in going to college. and she talks about this pretty openly in her vlogs. But I do want the experience of like game days, partying. I don't really care about school, as you guys all know. And yeah, it makes sense that she doesn't care. I mean, she's already successful. Like, why would she want to interfere with that?

But despite that, according to Olivia, her parents still really want her to go. And so, in order to get her into USC, Rick has to convince the university that she is an athlete who rose crew. Like, you know, in the little boat out on the water, like stroke, stroke. Because I guess some schools give preference to athletes. Now, obviously, Olivia's never rode crew. She doesn't care about crew. She barely cares about college.

In fact, neither of Aunt Becky's daughters have ever rode crew. But doesn't matter. They just need to pretend they do. And so Aunt Becky and Massimo stage photos of their daughters rowing crew, which you can see them here on the machines. And, I mean, it just looks ridiculous. And then I guess they attach these photos to their college application like, ah, look at us, we're rowing crew.

But whatever, because this works. Both Olivia and her sister get into USC. Now, Aunt Becky isn't the only actor Rick works with. Felicity Huffman from Desperate Housewives also uses his services to get her kid into college. And she pays him like 15 grand and he sets it up so that Felicity's daughter can cheat on her SAT exam. And that works too. So Felicity starts setting up the same deal for her second kid. In fact, all of this is working really well for Rick.

I mean, business is good and he's making a ton of money. In fact, he's getting so much business that he hires a dude in Texas to help students cheat on their SAT exams there. Like he's franchising out. Like he's going nationwide. And so by 2018, 750 wealthy families have given Rick around 25, million dollars in bribes to get their dumbass kids into a top university. And Rick himself has made around $15 million from all this.

Say what you want about Rick, but dude is set up for life. Until... Until it all goes wrong. Because it's now 2018, and the FBI just happens to be investigating some shady executive. It's in a totally unrelated security. And so the FBI starts interrogating this shady executive, and he mentions that a soccer coach at Yale offered his daughter a spot on the soccer team in exchange for a bribe of $450,000. And the FBI hears this and they're like, yeah, well, that's illegal.

And so then the FBI goes and busts this Yale soccer coach. And the coach tells the feds about his connection to Rick and this college admission scheme he's got going on. And so the feds get this Yale soccer coach. to wear a wire and meet up with Rick and record him talking about this scheme. And once the FBI has Rick admitting to fraud on tape, bam, they bust him. But they're like, you're going to help us take down Aunt Becky, Masimo, Felicity Huffman, and all your other rich friends who are bribing people to get their stupid-ass kids into college. And so Rick, with the help of the FBI, he starts calling up his clients one by one

and getting them to talk about their role in this scheme while the feds record him. And so now they have all the evidence they need. And so, bam, they arrest Aunt Becky. Actually, I don't think they arrested any of them like that. I actually think they contacted Aunt Becky and she went and turned herself in. Because, you know, super wealthy people, they just play by a different set of rules. But anyway, Rick ends up flipping on 53 different people. He flipped on over 30 parents and a bunch of coaches and school admin.

Bro is like the 6'9 of the college admissions world. And so yeah, they all get in trouble. Aunt Becky gets two months in prison and she gets kicked off a Hallmark Channel project she was working on. And she gets kicked off the final season of the Full House reboot. While Massimo gets five months in prison, Felicity Huffman gets 14 days in prison. While Rick, the mastermind of the whole thing, the guy who flipped on everyone, he gets three and a half years in prison. While Aunt Becky's daughters, they didn't get charged with anything or sentenced because, you know, they're team. teenagers, and it could be argued that their parents pushed them into all this. But they both left

USC shortly after this scandal broke, and Olivia lost some sponsorships and some brand deals, including the one. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana.

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