Scamfluencers - Making Up The Grade: The College Admissions Scandal

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Rick Singer is a college admissions consultant whose elaborate, secretive network of college coaches and admissions officers can rig the system to get rich kids into top tier schools of their parents’ choosing… for a price. But when the feds start listening in, Rick will fail the ultimate test, and expose the dark side of the American education system.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to scamfluencers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple podcasts. Sachi, as someone who lives in America, isn't the American college world just like so confusing? It's so confusing. And also, Sarah, it is so embarrassing the way these people care about where they went to school, where their kids will go to school, what they do at that school. They talk about it. It's so mortifying. I know. It's really crazy. And the most shocking part for me is that I can't believe they have

to do so many extracurriculars to get into school. But I want to know what the most shocking part for you is. Every time I hear how much it costs to attend a post-secondary in this country, I feel like screaming. It's so expensive. And it turns out that getting into an American college isn't just something that's confusing for us Canadians. The process is so complicated that there's an entire industry

devoted to helping people get in. Today, I'm going to tell you a story about a guy The process is so complicated that there's an entire industry devoted to helping people get in. Today, I'm going to tell you a story about a guy who helped people spend even more money on even shadier methods of getting their kids into elite schools. It's November 2023, and 60-year-old Felicity Huffman is in a dark studio in LA waiting for cameras to roll. The Desperate Housewives star looks sophisticated with clear-framed glasses

and her blonde hair blown out to perfection. She's a veteran and knows the drill, but she's probably more nervous than usual because she's not here to film a TV show. She's going to sit down with a reporter from ABC 7 News, and it's the first time she's speaking publicly since her brief stint in prison three years ago. Felicity was arrested for paying someone

to cheat on her daughter's SAT. She pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, served 11 days in prison, and completed 250 hours of community service. But she was just one of more than 50 parents, coaches, and school administrators who were charged in connection with one of the biggest college admissions scandals ever. The investigation that took them all down was known as Operation Varsity Blues.

Felicity was among the more famous people who were charged and convicted. This was huge news when it all went down in 2019, and there's been tons of media coverage about it since, including a Netflix documentary. Through it all, Felicity hasn't said a thing, even as she became a tabloid punching bag. But now she's ready to break her silence. The reporter wants to know one thing

that's been on everyone's mind. How did you get caught up in this? People assume that I went into this looking for a way to cheat the system and making proverbial criminal deals in back alleys, but that was not the case. I worked with a highly recommended college counselor named Rick Singer and trusted him implicitly. Rick Singer was the mastermind behind the entire scheme. He was charged alongside Felicity and others,

but he didn't get nearly as much media attention. Felicity tells a reporter that, at first, Rick's work was all above board. But she says that as the application deadlines approached, his advice turned from helpful to criminal. After a year, he started to say, your daughter's not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to. And I believed him.

And so when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like, and I know this seems crazy at the time, that that was my only option to give my daughter a future. It's so nuts to me that the US college racket is so complicated and so terrifying that even a celebrity feels like, my kid will not be successful if they don't get into a particular school, despite their wealth and their connections.

Exactly. Rick found that extreme wealth, status anxiety, and natural parenting impulses made for a toxic and lucrative blend. So people were willing to do just about anything to get their kids into elite colleges. All he had to do was ask them how much they were willing to pay. The first all-reality subscription service of its kind, Hey You! gives you access to every episode and every season of a wide range of captivating reality TV service of its kind, Hey You gives you access to every episode

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of Below Deck Mediterranean airing now. And once you're hooked, revisit classic seasons of all the franchises, including Below Deck, Sailing Yacht, Adventure, and Down Under, all available on HeyU. Sarah, I haven't seen a lot of Below Deck, but I am always excited to find a new show that I can watch from the very beginning, all the time, around the clock. Slide into summer with Below Deck, new episodes airing now. Watch all seasons and spin-offs of Below Deck on HeyU. That's H-A-Y-U.com. I'm Saatchi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagge.

And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims and what's left once a facade falls away. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondry, I'm Sarah Hegge. And I'm Saatchi Cole. And this is Scamfluencers.

This is a story about the parents who want their kids to get into a top-tier college. Not just for the education, but also to signal their own social status and superior parenting. And with a zero-sum admissions process full of loopholes and subjective decisions, it's easy to see how these parents can be convinced that they needed to lie to guarantee their kids' future. By offering a shortcut to the upper crust, Rick Singer made a fortune, and his downfall exposed the dark side

of the American education system. This is Making Up the Grade, the College Admission Scandal. Got you. In the early 60s, decades before he convinces any parents to commit fraud, Rick Singer grows up in a lower middle class family in a suburb of Chicago. Rick's a chubby kid with brown hair and boundless energy. We don't know much about Rick's upbringing,

but court documents later suggest his dad was very intense and put a ton of pressure on his son to succeed. We do know that from an early age, Rick learns to hustle. When he's 12, he gets older kids to buy him booze and then sells it to underage kids for profit. And he starts working out obsessively after being bullied for his weight.

He becomes an accomplished athlete playing football, baseball, and basketball. After high school, Rick jumps from college to college. Eventually, at 26, he graduates from a small private school in Texas. He takes a series of jobs as a basketball coach for high school and community college kids, first in Texas and then in Sacramento, California.

By this point, he's tall and athletic with a long face and a prominent nose. Here's a picture of him as a young man from his local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee. He kind of still looks like this, actually, but younger, he's got brown hair. He looks like Trent Reznor and Michael Phelps smushed together into

one person. He's got a long face and some very piercing eyes. I feel unsettled. Yeah, he really looks intense. And turns out he was super aggressive on the basketball court too. He even got fired from one high school for reportedly being super aggro to referees. But while coaching, Rick gets a firsthand look at the college recruitment process. For star athletes, it's easy. Schools seek them out.

But Rick notices that for the other players and their parents, the process is much trickier. And these parents are desperate to figure out how to get their kids into a good school. That's when Rick decides to shift to college consulting. In the early 90s, when he's in his 30s, he starts his own company, Future Stars. But Rick isn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart.

He wants to make money. So he decides to target the richest parents he can find, the ones willing to pay top dollar for help getting their kids into school. He starts hustling across the Sacramento area, pitching his company at high school college nights and places like country clubs. He explains that high school guidance counselors are swamped, but he can give dedicated support to each and every student. And the pitch works. Nervous parents line up to pay for Rick's services. nervous parents line up to pay for Rick's services. The panic of suburban parents is such a profitable industry.

It really is. And Rick takes full advantage. Over the next three decades, he opens and operates several different college prep businesses. And thanks to word of mouth recommendations, he works with clients from all over the world. But while he suggests that every student will get his undivided attention,

he doesn't actually do it all himself. Rick offloads a lot of the work on the tutors he hires. And then he takes a hefty chunk of their fees. Here's what one of his former employees told the Gangster Capitalism podcast. He would charge the families, I found out later, $50 cash per hour for me, and he would give me 20 and keep 30.

He liked nice things, he liked to dress well, he drove a nice car. Despite handing off lots of his work, Rick's business is actually mostly above board. But that will only take him so far. He needs to gain a competitive edge to prove that he's the best college counselor money can buy.

Even if it means straight up lying. Federal authorities later estimate that Rick starts explicitly committing fraud in 2011, about 20 years after he first gets into college admissions. Coincidentally, that's the same year Rick's wife files for divorce. Soon after that, he picks up and moves to Newport Beach, California, where he buys an expensive Mediterranean-style house flanked by lemon trees. At the same time, he throws himself into his college admissions business. And business is booming.

In fact, a few years earlier, Rick taped an audition for a reality TV show about his work. And TMZ actually got a hold of the footage. There's families all across the country that I work with, and many of them have their own planes. You know, we have families in Champaign, in Miami, and they send their plane to come pick me up, come to the meeting for a couple hours, two, three hours, put me right back on the plane, send me to the next place I need to go. It's amazing.

I feel like, you know, this is a situation where they could think about dismantling the existing education system because it's so flawed, but instead they're just gonna double down on the capitalism portion of it. I love that. It's so deeply sick. The show never goes anywhere, but Rick's reputation

and his asking fee has only grown. For context, the average high school college counselor makes around $60,000 per year. Rick can make more than that on just one of his clients. And the reason he can charge so much is because when he says he can get results, he means it. But before we get into specific strategies, here's a little background.

The quote unquote right school for most of Rick's wealthy clients is one of a handful of super elite colleges. Wealthy parents have always sought a competitive edge for their kids to get into those schools, historically by giving large donations. For example, Jared Kushner's dad famously donated more than $2 million to Harvard, most likely to get his son admitted. This method of acceptance is what Rick calls the back door to college admissions. But no matter how much money you donate, it won't guarantee a spot.

And for the non-Kushners, handing over millions of dollars on a risky bet just isn't possible. So Rick gives them other options he's used over the years. If a student applies more or less normally, Rick calls that the front door. And he's found ways to, let's say, enhance those applications. If a kid's grades aren't good enough, Rick will find online classes their high school

will accept for extra credit, hire someone to take them, and use those scores to boost the kid's GPA. He can also help that kid get a near-perfect score on standardized tests. He'll get a doctor to diagnose a student with a learning disability, even if they don't actually have one. That will allow the kid to take the ACT or SAT with a private proctor and extended time. Here's how Rick describes it to one parent in a secretly recorded call later released by the FBI.

You know, he's right. It's not fair, but his response, which is to make it even more unfair, seems ill-advised. Yeah, and Rick goes beyond just getting more time. He has a proctor on his payroll who can actually take the test for the student in question or correct their answers. Rick can even arrange things so kids never know the test was fixed. The price of the service varies. Felicity Huffman paid $15,000 while other parents pay up to $75,000.

Rick can also make a kid look more appealing by just straight up lying. Like he'll make up a fake award and he often lies about a kid's ethnicity so they'll benefit from affirmative action. And if you don't wanna roll the dice with an admissions office at all, Rick has yet another way of helping students get into school. It's a process he calls the side door,

which means getting his client's kid recruited as an athlete for the college of their choice, even if they don't play a sport. At most colleges, each team gets a certain number of recruiting spots per year. Admissions departments often have the ability to lower their academic standards for these athletes, and they usually defer to the athletic directors and coaches. Luckily, Rick has established lucrative business relationships with coaches and athletic directors

all over the country, including at Yale, Georgetown, Stanford, and USC. Rick likes to pick low profile sports like rowing or water polo. Then he creates a fake athletic profile for the student, bribes his contact in the athletics department, and boom, the kid is in. Parents still pay a lot of money for this side door approach, but it tends to cost way less

than buying a building at Harvard. That's still legal. But Rick's cheaper strategies are definitely not. So rather than paying him directly, parents send money to his nonprofit, Key Worldwide Foundation. On paper, the charity helps underserved kids get into college. In reality, Rick uses the foundation's bank account to pay himself, as well as anyone else involved in his schemes.

And the best part? Parents can claim their shady payments as a tax write-off. No one at the colleges asks any questions. After all, lots of the people who are supposed to watch out for fraud are getting bribes. So Rick feels untouchable, but he's overlooking a group of people who could seriously threaten his scheme.

The same people he's been shit talking for years. High school college counselors. In the winter of 2017, Julie Taylor Vaz is in her office making a phone call. Julie is in her early 50s, has a close cropped fro and a warm smile. She's a veteran college counselor at Buckley, a super wealthy private high school nestled in the Hollywood Hills. Julie used to work in admissions at Stanford.

Now, she helps Buckley students through the college application process and talks them up to admissions departments. She's on a call with an admissions officer at Tulane University, who says she's especially impressed with one Buckley senior named Amanda. Now, we should note that Amanda isn't her real name. We've changed the names of the kids in the story

because they weren't the ones charged with crimes. Tulane tells Julie they'd love to hear more about Amanda. After all, she's a young black woman with incredible test scores who will be the first person in her family to attend college. You'd think Julie would be excited about this too, but she's confused. Because Amanda is actually white, and her father is a prominent attorney

who not only attended college, but is on the Buckley School Board. Yeah, I would also find this kind of confusing, I think. Well, Julie thinks there must have been some kind of mix-up. She tells her bosses and sets two lanes straight. Then she starts looking into Amanda's other applications. Julie learns that a bunch of other schools Amanda applied to also think she's black and a potential first generation college student.

Then she learned something wild. Amanda had applied early to Georgetown, and Georgetown doesn't just have the wrong demographic information. They also think that Amanda is one of California's top tennis players and that she's being recruited to play the sport. But Julie has never heard of Amanda playing tennis at a competitive enough level to get recruited. Buckley's higher-ups call Amanda's father

trying to get some answers. He says he and Amanda have no idea what happened. But he did hire a college counselor named Rick Singer. And someone who works with Rick must have changed the info on the applications. Now, this wouldn't be totally shocking. Last year, Julie had to deal with a student who wasn't able to access their applications because Rick changed the password. Buckley has already asked parents not to work with Rick,

advice that Amanda's dad ignored. For what it's worth, we talked to a lawyer for Amanda's family who told us that no one in the family knew about any of the cheating. And there's no hard evidence to suggest they did. But Julie thinks that either way, no one should be filling out Amanda's applications for her. And a couple of months later, Julie watches as Buckley is rocked by another scandal.

Students learn that several members of the board, including Amanda's dad, successfully petitioned for teachers to change their kids' grades. The ensuing outcry leads Buckley's head of school to resign. Meanwhile, Georgetown opens an investigation. But apparently, they don't find evidence of anything major that leads back to resign. Meanwhile, Georgetown opens an investigation, but apparently they don't find evidence of anything major that leads back to Rick. Julie knows something isn't right, and just a few weeks later, in early spring 2018,

she has her suspicions confirmed. She gets a call from USC, and they tell her they're offering a spot to a student we'll call Marcus. They say he made it into their water polo team, but Julie's never heard anything about Marcus playing the sport competitively, and Buckley doesn't even have a water polo team. As ever, Sarah, I'm always impressed by the boldness

of not just lying that you're participating in something, but lying that you're participating in something that does not exist. Yeah, it also is a pretty believable lie because I would just assume that every private school has a water polo team. But it turns out Marcus' father paid Rick a quarter of a million dollars to secure him a spot at USC.

Marcus actually posed with a water polo cap and a ball his dad ordered from Amazon. Then he was photoshopped into an action shot that Rick used for Marcus' fake athletic profile. Julie doesn't know all the shady details at this point, but she tries to raise the alarm with USC's admissions office. She tells him there must have been a mistake.

But the athletic director isn't having it. She shuts down Julie's questions because she's on Rick's payroll. She even provides a cover story. Marcus plays water polo in Europe in the summer, which is where he met the USC coach. This seems beyond fishy to Julie, but the admissions department is in the process

of confirming Marcus's recruitment. They're gonna accept him either way. Besides, her job is to get students into prestigious colleges, not out of them. Julie backs off, but she knows there's something not right here. And she's not the only one. Because a surprising, unwitting ally is about to help take the whole scheme down. In March 2018, Morrie Tobin is at home when he hears a loud banging on his door.

Morrie's in his 50s, and he looks like a nerdy Don Draper. He's a wealthy finance guy and lives in a chateau-style mansion in a bougie part of LA. He's shocked when federal agents swarm into his house and tell him he's under arrest. For a second, Maury's probably not sure what he's being charged with, because he's been doing a lot of crimes.

He was involved in a massive pump and dump stock scheme and duped investors out of at least $15 million. But he also agreed to pay the soccer coach at Yale almost half a million dollars to get his youngest daughter in as a recruit. I almost respect that this guy is doing so much crime that he's like, I'm not even really sure what I'm in trouble for today.

Well, he pretty quickly finds out that he's getting busted for the stock scheme. And a few weeks later, he flies to Boston so the agents can question him. That's when he makes an offer to save his own skin. He tells the FBI he knows an Ivy League soccer coach who's taking bribes in exchange for getting kids into college. It's a huge defeat for him. Because Morrie loves Yale. He went there for a time but left before graduating. And he's been trying to get all six of his kids to go there too.

At this point, one has already graduated and two others are currently enrolled. It's not clear if he did anything to get them in, but he has been working behind the scenes to get his youngest daughter admitted. Maury knows his tips to the feds might eventually out her, but he just can't face the prospect of serious prison time. But soon enough, Maury's daughter won't be the only one thrown under the bus. I'm Ellis James.

And I'm Colin Murray and we're the hosts of Everything to Play For, the podcast that tells the greatest sports stories of all time. This season we're covering Wayne Rooney England Man. Remember the name! Wayne Rooney! Yes, we're focusing in for three episodes on Wayne Rooney's career with the three lions on his chest. From a teenager breaking into the England set up all the way through to his international retirement. Takes in so much, Ellis.

What a way to burst onto the scene as well, Euro 2004, where he was one of the absolute standout stars of that tournament. However, if you look at his international career, those tournaments ravaged by injury, disappointments, crazy things happening on and off the field. There's an awful lot to get stuck into. Cannot wait. Follow everything to play for in the Wandery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge seasons early and ad free right now on Wandery+. From Wandery, I'm Raaza Jaffrey, and this is The Spy Who. This series, we open the file on Eamon Dean, the spy who betrayed Bin Laden. In 1994, 16-year-old Eamon wants to die. He heads to war-torn Bosnia to join the Mujahideen and save his fellow Muslims. He hopes to become a martyr so that he can be

reunited with his dead parents in paradise. Instead, he's about to be confronted by a cruel and bloody reality. A reality that'll lead him to turn his back on terrorism and become the West's top spy inside Al-Qaeda. Follow the Spy Who on the Wandery app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of the Spy Who betrayed Bin Laden early and ad-free with Wandery+. Shortly after his arrest, Morrie is in a Boston hotel room holding a wad of cash. He's meeting with the Yale soccer coach to hand over the bribe. It's part of the $450,000 he's promised the coach in exchange for getting his daughter into school. We'll call her Regina.

But this is not a normal handoff. The hotel room has been bugged by the FBI. To save himself, Maury is serving up the coach on a silver platter, and his daughter is about to be collateral damage. Regina has already posted all about landing a spot on Yale's soccer team on her Instagram. Some of her classmates' parents were surprised by this news.

Regina is a good soccer player, but probably not good enough for a top-tier athletic program. Ironically, Regina has also gone out of her way to rat on fellow students she suspects of cheating. She thinks they're lying to get more time on standardized tests. I miss so much being 17 or 18 and starting college and just being so delusional about how good you are at something that even though you know

you're not like that good at soccer, you're like, yeah, sure, I play soccer for Yale. Why not? Yeah, it really shows that these are actual children and it also seems like it's one of those cases where her parents tried to hide it from her. But back in the hotel room, the soccer coach takes the bait. The FBI scoops him up shortly afterward

and just like Maury, he offers to cooperate in exchange for lighter punishment. He tells the feds that he isn't the ringleader. He says it's a guy named Rick Singer. The FBI uses the evidence to start tapping Rick's phones. It's the beginning of a massive investigation into Rick and his many powerful clients. The same day Morrie helps burn the soccer coach, Mossimo Giannulli storms into Marymount High School. It's a Catholic all-girls school in Los Angeles

with mission-style architecture and tuition that costs more than $40,000 a year. Mossimo is a tanned and fit 55-year-old fashion designer. Yes, millennials, it's that Mossimo. His daughter, Olivia Jade, goes to Marymount. Mossimo is here to confront one of the school's college counselors, Philip Patrone. Philip is in his 40s and handsome with brown boy band hair and a big smile. He's been assigned to help Olivia apply to college. He even wrote her

letter of recommendation. But Mossimo has just learned that Philip has also done something extremely unhelpful, and he is livid. Massimo heard that USC called Philip to say they planned to recruit Olivia for the crew team. This was part of Massimo's plan for his daughter. But to Massimo's extreme annoyance, Philip told USC that he highly doubted she was a competitive rower. Apparently, Philip told USC that most of Olivia's extracurricular time is spent on her budding career as a vlogger and beauty influencer.

That part is true. She is extremely successful at it. In his letter of recommendation, Philip called her a, quote, guru in her field. And Sachi, this is why we aren't changing Olivia's name like we did for the other kids. She was already a public figure when this all happened. And as we'll see, she has some things to say about it.

Massimo and his wife, the actress Lori Loughlin, have paid half a million dollars to get their two daughters into USC. And this plan includes claiming that Olivia is an accomplished coxswain, which is basically the captain of a rowing team. In order to make that believable, they've staged a photo of Olivia Jade. Sachi, will you describe it? Yeah, it's Olivia. Her face is blurred out in this photo.

She's pretending to row on a machine. This is the body language of someone who has never before seen or experienced a rowing exercise. She looks uncomfortable. Yeah, it looks so awkward. But Massimo is still not going to let anything get in the way of all their work to get Olivia accepted. Philip's honesty is threatening his investment, but he keeps yelling until Philip promises

to call USC back and say, "'My bad, Olivia totally has a rowing career.'" Satisfied, Massimo leaves campus. It's been challenging for him because actually, Olivia doesn't even want to go to college. She wants to drop out of high school and focus on her influencer career. And she's not hiding her feelings either.

Here's what she said in a vlog about her first day of senior year posted a few months earlier. On a real note though, I know that I complain about school. I mean, who actually enjoys going to school. If you do, I'm very jealous. But I also feel the need to say that for all of us that like to complain about school, because I get how much it sucks,

we have to remember how lucky we are to have an education and how many people would kill to have a good education. I'm grateful that I get to be educated, even though I hate it. Everyone is really mad at her about this. But I gotta say, like, I'm not. This is how I felt when I was going to school. I think a lot of people, even though you're like,

yeah, I'm blessed and grateful for the opportunity, going to school is annoying. It's annoying and you kind of want to be done. By the time you're like 20, you're ready to go do something else. I get it. Yeah, I really can't hate on a teenager for being like, I hate school.

But it's not really about what Olivia Jade wants. And Massimo is relieved when Philip's apology seems to work and USC doesn't rescind his daughter's acceptance. But what he doesn't know is that USC starts an investigation into Olivia's recruitment. But the person they asked to lead the inquiry is the same athletic director, Rick Bribed, to get her in in the first place.

So obviously that investigation goes nowhere. For the moment, it seems like Massimo and Rick's scheme for Olivia has gone off without a hitch. Except that USC isn't the only organization investigating Massimo's bribe. And this is one authority that cannot be bought off. It's July 2018, a couple of months after Massimo's visit to Philip's office.

And for the last few months, FBI Special Agent Laura Smith has been secretly monitoring all of Rick's calls. Laura's in her late 30s and has been a forensic accountant with the FBI in Boston for eight years. And now she's on this case, which is getting to be so big they need to give the investigation its own name, you know, like in a movie. And they decide to pay homage

to one of the greatest teen movies of all time by naming it Operation Varsity Blues. This is why I think cops are embarrassing. I mean, they have to have a little bit of fun. Since Laura started working on Rick's case, the number of co-conspirators she's identified has ballooned. I need to tell you about one of my favorites, Jane Buckingham. She's a blonde mom influencer and trend forecaster who's always looking like she's posing for a Christmas card.

And Jane gives self-help speeches telling parents they're at fault for coddling their kids. Sachi, will you describe this Instagram post from 2018? Yes, it's a post with big block letters that says, don't cheat. And then the caption says, apply it to all aspects of your life and you'll probably be OK. I love irony. Yeah, I mean, I think she's doing the influencer

thing of pretending you are a different person than you are. Cool. By the summer of 2018, Laura has discovered that Jane is paying Rick $50,000 to help her son cheat on his ACT. We're going to call him Gerald. At this point, he's already gotten a fraudulent learning disability diagnosis so he can have extended time on the test, and he's supposed to fly to Texas in July to take it with the proctor who's in Rick's pocket.

This person will fix his answers to be sure he gets a high score. Two days before Gerald is supposed to take the test, Laura intercepts a panicked call Jane makes to Rick. Jane complains that Gerald needs his tonsils removed and his dad doesn't want him traveling. So Jane suggests the proctor just go ahead and take the test for Gerald, even though they won't be in the same state. But Jane also wants Gerald to take a fake test at home, because he doesn't know about the cheating and she doesn't want him to find out. The other person she doesn't want to know? Gerald's dad. They're still dealing with the fallout of a nasty divorce.

Laura can't believe what she's hearing. And then, on a second call, she hears Rick convince his proctor in Texas to go along with Jane's plan. Finally, Rick calls Jane back to tell her the good news. They're all set. Sachi, do you mind reading an excerpt of their conversation? Sure. Jane says, I need you to get him into USC,

and then I need you to cure cancer and make peace in the Middle East. And Rick says, I can do that if you can figure out a way to boot your husband out so he treats you well. And Jane says, that's impossible. But you know, peace in the Middle East. You know, Harvard, the rest of it, I have faith in you. That's almost romantic.

They're kind of flirting, huh? They are going to the boneyard, yes. Well, Laura lets the plan go through. She doesn't want to interfere with this gold mine of evidence. And sure, Gerald's classmates are confused when they find out he took the ACT at home because that's not really a thing.

But ultimately, no one really questions it. The college admissions process has become so crazy that nothing is surprising anymore. In the end, Gerald gets a 35 out of 36 on the ACT. And a few weeks later, Laura decides that she's done preparing. It's time to give Rick his big test. Not long after Gerald takes the ACT, Rick is in Boston talking to the Yale soccer coach

turned FBI informant. It's September 2018, and they're in a room at a Marriott Hotel to discuss an upcoming bribe. Of course, Rick doesn't know that the FBI loves a good hotel room sting, and that they've planted cameras and mics to catch him red-handed.

Once the conversation is over, there's a knock at the door. Rick opens it to find Laura waiting for him with handcuffs. The FBI has Rick dead to rights. So, ever the hustler, he changes tactics. He says he'll cooperate to help them nail parents and college officials in exchange for leniency. And Laura agrees. This will help the FBI make an example out of the rest of Rick's network.

Still, Rick is used to winning. So he tries to have it both ways. He's supposed to continue the fraud as if everything is normal, but he also tries to warn a few of his clients. He deletes text messages, meets with people in secret, and uses a second phone that he keeps hidden from the feds. But before one of his secret meetings, Laura catches on. They slap Rick with an additional obstruction of justice charge, and he gives in.

He realizes he has no leverage to keep himself safe. But remember, Rick's a competitive guy. He probably figures that if he has to be an informant, he might as well be the best one that FBI has ever seen. So Rick starts to actively trick his clients into incriminating themselves. Over the next few months, he sits with Laura and other federal agents to make a series of calls

on a recorded line. The easiest targets are the clients he's currently working with, like Felicity Huffman and her husband, the actor William H. Macy. They're considering using the cheating scheme again for their younger daughter. Rick tries to get them to confirm that they paid $15,000 for their older daughter's false test score.

And unaware that Rick is playing them, William just responds, cool. This is like the best case of someone not really listening and responding. Yeah, I mean... Oh, no notes. No notes. No notes. Well, for past clients though, there's no real reason for Rick to call out of the blue. They've already gotten their kids into college. So Rick and Laura use a cover story to dig up evidence. They agree that he'll tell the parents his foundation is being audited by the IRS

and that he's calling to make sure they have the same story. Remember, most of the parents paid their bribes through his charity and wrote off the payments on their taxes. Here's what Rick says on a recorded call with a real estate developer who paid over $600,000 to get his daughters into USC and UCLA. So what's happened is my foundation is getting audited now. Uh-huh.

Which, as you know, is pretty typical. Uh-huh. Right? So they're looking at all my payments. Is it that common to get audited? Yeah, I mean, also, it is just the way he's saying it is so slow and careful that I feel like it probably is a bit suspicious. Yeah, this is filling me with dread.

Shockingly, no one seems to catch on that Rick's a snitch. Soon enough, the FBI has put together all the evidence it needs. Rick's clients have been trying to get their kids into high-profile colleges, but they're about to be admitted into a high-profile class of their own, indicted co-conspirators. Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Saruti. And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. From Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders, and our recent rundown of the Murdoch Saga. Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what

we like. We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist?

Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus shorthand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. On the morning of March 14th, 2019, about six months after Rick's arrest, Morrie's daughter Regina goes to school like it's any other day. She's a senior at an all-girls school in LA's wealthy Larchmont area. She's sailing through the last bit of senior year because she knows she's already been recruited for the Yale soccer team. But then the news starts to break.

Dozens of people have been arrested as part of Operation Varsity Blues. It's a massive scandal. And the media is having a field day. — A flurry of new indictments today, ensnaring celebrities, CEOs, college coaches, in a massive scheme to game the college admission system. The bust is called Operation Varsity Blues and the accusations range from paying thousands of dollars for higher SAT scores to presenting students as top athletes in sports they never even played.

Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are among the 50 people now charged in this scandal. Those are clips from CNN, ABC News, and CBS Evening News. I remember when this broke, and I feel like it probably would not have been as big of a deal were it not for two famous women who were wrapped up in this. Otherwise, it just would have been like, oh, another scam to get into college. Like, sure, whatever. No, exactly. And this all seems like fun, juicy celebrity gossip until Regina learns that her father, Maury,

is also caught up in the sting, which means he bought her way into Yale. And worse still, he's being named as the source who outed the scheme to the FBI. He's a cheat and a snitch, and he didn't even warn her. She's learning about it alongside everyone else. It's Regina's worst nightmare. Everyone stares at her as she walks down the hall.

Some of her classmates openly laugh at her. She turns around and starts running, tears streaming down her face. This is so mortifying. This would change my relationship with my family for the rest of my life. I would never trust them again. She's a teenager who's suffering.

I feel bad for her. Yeah. And as you might expect, a couple of months later, Regina gets rejected by Yale. Her classmates reportedly cheer when they find out, leaving Regina in tears again. But her humiliation is just the beginning of the media circus surrounding Operation Varsity Blues. leaving Regina in tears again. But her humiliation is just the beginning

of the media circus surrounding Operation Varsity Blues. In total, 50 people are charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud. This includes parents, standardized testing professionals, college coaches, and administrators. The FBI says the parents paid Rick more than $25 million between 2011 and 2018. If found guilty, they could face decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines.

Many of Rick's co-conspirators initially deny any involvement in the scheme. But when they learn of the overwhelming evidence gathered with Rick's cooperation, almost everyone pleads guilty, including Massimo and Laurie, Jane, and Felicity. All of the athletic directors and coaches involved lose their jobs.

In the end, sentences in the Varsity Blues case range from probation to 30 months in prison. Regina's father, Maury, isn't charged thanks to his snitching, but he ends up getting one year in prison for the stalk scam, the charge he was trying to avoid in the first place. The only person who seems to come out on top is Olivia Jade. Now she has an excuse to drop out of college like she always wanted.

Her reputation takes a hit, and Sephora drops the Olivia Jade beauty line they were carrying. But she bounces back pretty quickly. After an eight month hiatus, she returns to her YouTube channel. And a year later, she does an apology tour on the Facebook watch show, Red Table Talk.

I'm not trying to victimize myself. I don't want pity. I don't deserve pity. And for so long, I wasn't able to talk about this because of the legalities behind it. I never got to say, I'm really sorry that this happened. Olivia still has millions of fans on Instagram and YouTube and a thriving influencer career.

She got a spot on Dancing with the Stars. Plus as of this recording she appears to be dating actor and internet boyfriend Jacob Elordi. Well, we all have crosses to bear. Some of us must date someone very tall. Others must make podcasts. I'm glad she's okay. And she seems genuinely sorry to me. After everyone is sentenced, Rick finally has his day in court.

He opts not to wear his usual athletic coach attire. Instead, he wears a gray pinstripe suit with a black and white checkered tie. His lawyers say that he's been living in a trailer park in St. Petersburg, Florida, unable to get a job. They say he's been offering paddle boarding lessons to autistic children and veterans. Looking for leniency, Rick's lawyers point out

that he's already agreed to turn over $5 million, and they note that he helped the FBI with its investigation. But Laura and the court aren't jumping to applaud him. In legal filings, they remind the judge of Rick's secret cell phone, how he got rid of evidence, and his sneaky meetings to warn parents. There's no indication that Rick would have ever stopped if he wasn't caught. He's sentenced to three and a half years in prison, which, if you think about it, is almost long enough to earn

a bachelor's degree. Saji, this episode is very foreign to us. I remember first reading about all of this and being like, is it really that hard to get into college? Because plenty of dumb people I know have gone to colleges like USC. I mean, yes. I think this scam really like lays bare that it isn't about whether or not you're smart.

It's about where your money is and who you know, and you can kind of get anything you want. I mean, this is a country where you can buy anything. Why wouldn't you be able to buy an education like that? Yeah, and I do wonder like, you know, especially with some of these wealthier parents, you already have generational wealth set up for your kids. Why does it matter so much which college they go to?

That's a part I still can't really wrap my head around. Yeah, there's an importance to going to the same school that your parents went, or going to the school that they couldn't get into or going into an IV. Like think about how many TikTok videos you've seen of kids sitting with their parents to open their acceptance letters and hope that they got into a school and they're like wearing sweaters and everybody cheers.

Like that is not an experience I was ever gonna have that I think you were ever gonna have that most people we know in Canada were ever gonna have, never. But there is an obsession about it. And, like, the kids don't always have it. Sometimes it's just the parents. I understand, also, it matters to these people because it doesn't just end with getting into a good school.

It's being around the right people. Which is the part that also gets me. It's like, they kind of just got played by their own classism. Yeah, I guess we put it that way. And I do think outside of this being ridiculous, there are kids that were not allowed to get into these schools because these rich kids took their spots. Yeah. I mean, the unfortunate part about this truly is, college admissions is a pie, right? There's only so many pieces of it,

and when someone lies to get in, it means somebody else who maybe deserved it can't, and that sucks. One thing I think isn't expected with the story is the whole Olivia Jade thing. Like, she was such a target at first, but she never wanted to go to school, so I don't really know why she had to apologize.

I think unfortunately Olivia became like the poster child for over privileged children in LA which a lot of that is still true about her she is still incredibly privileged and lucky but I think like a lot of kids her parents told her that they were gonna handle something and she believed them. I can't tell you how many times my parents were like we're just gonna deal with this sign here we're gonna get this sorted for you we're gonna to handle something and she believed them. I can't tell you how many times my parents were like, we're just going to deal with this sign here. We're going to get this sorted for you. We're going to open your bank account. We're going to help you with your college stuff.

I said yes blindly to everything. Cause of course I trust my parents. So I feel kind of bad for these kids. Cause they're learning a really painful lesson at a very tender age, which is that sometimes your parents are full of shit. And what a brutal public way to find that out. Yeah. And also, you know,

to give these parents a little bit of grace, this is kind of how society is built, where school is the most important thing in the world, especially in America, where people think you can't have a life without college. And I just want to say, you know, as someone who, let's say, dropped out of post-secondary, my life is great. Like, you could survive without school.

Listen, man, I did graduate from university and you and I have the same job, so. If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey. This is Making Up The Grade, the college admissions scandal. I'm Sarah Haggye. And I'm Saatchi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover,

please email us at scamfluencers at Wondry.com. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were To Cheat and Lie in LA by Evgenia Peretz for Vanity Fair, The Yale Dad Who Set Off the College Admission Scandal by Jennifer Levitz for The Wall Street Journal, and Operation Varsity Blues, the College Admission Scandal, directed by Chris Smith for Netflix. Rachel Borders wrote this episode, additional writing by us, Sachie Kuhl and Sarah Hegge. Sarah Eni is our story editor and senior producer,

and Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact Checking by Sarah Baum, sound design by James Morgan, additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Freesawn Sync. Our managing producers are Matt Gant and Desi Blaylock. Janine Cornelow and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary.

Our producers are John Reed, Yasmin Ward, and Kate Young. Our senior producers are Ginny Bloom and Jen Swan. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louie, and Erin O'F podcast available exclusively on Wondry Plus, explores a 15 year old mystery, the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence on March 18th 2009. Claudia was a seemingly happy 35 year old when she vanished without a trace. There was no crime scene, no CCTV of Claudia leaving her home and nobody found. She simply finished her shift, phoned her mum for a chat and was never seen again. Claudia's mum Joan is now 80 years old and she thinks this might be her last chance to find answers. I'm journalist Tom McDermott and when I offered to help Joan

I had no idea what was in store. In Answers for Claudia I speak to the people who knew Claudia, interview past suspects and investigate the rumours and theories that surround this case. Why are the residents of the village Claudia lived in still so frightened and what can we find out about the people who were closest to Claudia? You can binge Answers for Claudia exclusively on Wondry+. Join Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app.