john vandemoer is facing federal charges as part of the operation varsity blues college admission scandal, allegedly getting donations to place kids in the stanford sailing program, but the truth is, he’s an innocent man. all the donations he got was for the stanford sailing program, none for his own use.
john is facing a mountain of legal bills and is still in the process of putting his life back together – something that will undoubtedly take years. when stanford fired john, he lost his job, his home, his kids' preschool, his health insurance and his dignity. if you have it in your heart to help out, a reblog or a donation would be greatly appreciated.
(his go fund me)
(operation varsity blues documentary trailer)
(pre-order john’s book: rigged justice, how the college admissions scandal ruined an innocent man's life)
As of Wednesday, 10 parents and 16 people in total pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering crimes linked to college admissions consultant Rick Singer.
Had they not hired him, Singer said, she would have scored a 23.Two months later, Marcia Abbott asked Singer if he could rig SAT subject tests, which are often submitted as supplements to an application and are scored out of 800 points.Duke “told us they didn’t want anything below a 750,” Marcia Abbott said, according to the transcript. Marcia Abbott had graduated cum laude from Duke, according to the wedding notice in the New York Times.Singer told her the subject tests were more specialized and therefore “a little more expensive,” but could be fixed if the Abbotts were willing to pay. He said it would be “at least 75.”“Yeah,” Marcia Abbott said. “That’s fine.”She told Singer her daughter “loves” Riddell, who had corrected her ACT. “She said, ‘Can’t I take my SAT subjects with him?’”In September 2018, Singer confirmed that Riddell would fix math and literature tests for the Abbotts’ daughter, and that “we’ll get 750 and above.”“Fabulous,” Marcia Abbott said.The Abbotts wired Singer another $75,000 from their family foundation. With Riddell’s help, their daughter scored 800 and 710 on the math and literature tests, respectively.“Do you know how she did on her own?” Gregory Abbott asked Singer afterwards.“Do I know how she did on her own? Yeah, I do,” Singer said. “She scored in the mid-600s.”By then, Singer was cooperating with investigators. On their instructions, he called Sartorio in October 2018 and told him his foundation was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, which could come calling with questions about Sartorio’s five-figure, cash “donation” a year earlier.“Anything that was done verbally, that was verbal and there’s no record,” Sartorio said, expressing relief at having paid cash. “There’s nothing. There’s nothing.”Had they not hired him, Singer said, she would have scored a 23.Two months later, Marcia Abbott asked Singer if he could rig SAT subject tests, which are often submitted as supplements to an application and are scored out of 800 points.Duke “told us they didn’t want anything below a 750,” Marcia Abbott said, according to the transcript. Marcia Abbott had graduated cum laude from Duke, according to the wedding notice in the New York Times.Singer told her the subject tests were more specialized and therefore “a little more expensive,” but could be fixed if the Abbotts were willing to pay. He said it would be “at least 75.”“Yeah,” Marcia Abbott said. “That’s fine.”She told Singer her daughter “loves” Riddell, who had corrected her ACT. “She said, ‘Can’t I take my SAT subjects with him?’”In September 2018, Singer confirmed that Riddell would fix math and literature tests for the Abbotts’ daughter, and that “we’ll get 750 and above.”“Fabulous,” Marcia Abbott said.The Abbotts wired Singer another $75,000 from their family foundation. With Riddell’s help, their daughter scored 800 and 710 on the math and literature tests, respectively.“Do you know how she did on her own?” Gregory Abbott asked Singer afterwards.“Do I know how she did on her own? Yeah, I do,” Singer said. “She scored in the mid-600s.”By then, Singer was cooperating with investigators. On their instructions, he called Sartorio in October 2018 and told him his foundation was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, which could come calling with questions about Sartorio’s five-figure, cash “donation” a year earlier.“Anything that was done verbally, that was verbal and there’s no record,” Sartorio said, expressing relief at having paid cash. “There’s nothing. There’s nothing.”Three parents admitted Wednesday to paying tens of thousands of dollars to fix their children’s college entrance exams and pleaded guilty to fraud conspiracy in federal court in Boston.
Peter Jan Sartorio of Menlo Park and Gregory and Marcia Abbott, a married couple who split time between New York City and Aspen, admitted to conspiring with Newport Beach college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer to inflate their children’s ACT and SAT scores.
As of Wednesday, 10 parents and 16 people in total have pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering crimes committed as part of Singer’s scheme, including Singer himself.
With Singer’s help, Sartorio’s daughter secured a 27 out of 36 on the ACT, good for the 86th percentile nationally. She had scored in the 51st percentile on a preliminary SAT. The Abbotts’ daughter notched a 35 out of 36 on the ACT, a score in the 99th percentile.
In both cases, Singer paid an accomplice — Mark Riddell, a 36-year-old Harvard graduate and director of exam preparation at IMG Academy in Florida — to correct the students’ answers once they’d finished. Singer bribed administrators at two schools, in West Hollywood and Houston, to turn a blind eye to the fraud, prosecutors say.
Sartorio paid Singer $15,000 in cash. The Abbotts wired $50,000 from a family foundation to Singer’s charity, which had no real charitable purpose and was used to launder bribes.
Singer has pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and obstruction of justice. Riddell has pleaded guilty to fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Both are awaiting sentencing.
Sartorio, 53, runs a frozen foods enterprise that includes selling frozen burritos under the “PJ’s Organics” line. Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts recommend Sartorio be sentenced at the low end of guidelines that call for six months in prison to no time at all, according to his plea agreement and federal sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors say he should be fined $9,500.
Prosecutors recommend Gregory Abbott spend a year in prison and pay a $55,000 fine. They recommend the same sentence and fine for Marcia Abbott.
Gregory Abbott, 68, is the founder and chairman of a packaging company for the food and beverage industry. A 1987 notice published in the New York Times, commemorating his marriage to Marcia Meighan, described Gregory Abbott as a novelist and former chairman of a lingerie manufacturer, Ithaca Industries, which was founded by his father.
He authored a 2006 romantic paperback, “Sheer Pressure,” which tells the story of “Alex, the playboy son of a pantyhose magnate, [who] loves his father but loathes working for him,” according to a summary on Amazon.com.
In conversations intercepted by the FBI and transcribed in court documents, the Abbotts told Singer their hopes for their daughter — to see her matriculate at Duke, her mother’s alma mater — and what they were willing to do to make it happen.
After their daughter’s test was fixed, netting her a 35 out of 36 on the ACT, Singer told the couple it was “a good thing that she did this.”
Had they not hired him, Singer said, she would have scored a 23.
Two months later, Marcia Abbott asked Singer if he could rig SAT subject tests, which are often submitted as supplements to an application and are scored out of 800 points.
Duke “told us they didn’t want anything below a 750,” Marcia Abbott said, according to the transcript. Marcia Abbott had graduated cum laude from Duke, according to the wedding notice in the New York Times.
Singer told her the subject tests were more specialized and therefore “a little more expensive,” but could be fixed if the Abbotts were willing to pay. He said it would be “at least 75.”
“Yeah,” Marcia Abbott said. “That’s fine.”
She told Singer her daughter “loves” Riddell, who had corrected her ACT. “She said, ‘Can’t I take my SAT subjects with him?’”
In September 2018, Singer confirmed that Riddell would fix math and literature tests for the Abbotts’ daughter, and that “we’ll get 750 and above.”
“Fabulous,” Marcia Abbott said.
The Abbotts wired Singer another $75,000 from their family foundation. With Riddell’s help, their daughter scored 800 and 710 on the math and literature tests, respectively.
“Do you know how she did on her own?” Gregory Abbott asked Singer afterwards.
“Do I know how she did on her own? Yeah, I do,” Singer said. “She scored in the mid-600s.”
By then, Singer was cooperating with investigators. On their instructions, he called Sartorio in October 2018 and told him his foundation was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, which could come calling with questions about Sartorio’s five-figure, cash “donation” a year earlier.
“Anything that was done verbally, that was verbal and there’s no record,” Sartorio said, expressing relief at having paid cash. “There’s nothing. There’s nothing.”
the most fucked up thing about the college admissions scandal is that the university staff accepting bribes where doing so because they had fundraising pressures
Rick Singer (the ringleader) gave an interview to the WSJ:
From his coaching days, Singer said, he knew college coaches faced tremendous pressure to fundraise for their programs. So he offered families access through what he called a “side door,” essentially purchasing walk-on spots on teams for six-figure sums. Coaches and an athletic department administrator from the University of Southern California, as well as coaches at Yale University, Georgetown University and Stanford University, pleaded guilty to colluding with Singer, taking money for their programs or themselves.
Singer said coaches pursued him to find families willing to play along. “I’m not calling them…. They’re calling me, saying, ‘Hey Rick, I got five spots this year. I’m willing to give up one. I need to raise $250,000 or $500,000 to redo my floor to take my team here to fund salaries here or there. I’ll give you one of my spots.’”
“It wasn’t like I made up the process. This goes on at every school in America,” Singer claimed. “It’s just the nature of the beast.”
(you can type the WSJ URL into here https://archive.is/)
on another note, the dude seems like he's going straight and has opened a consultancy firm doing the same thing. he said that he was getting requests for help even when he was in prison, which he did for free while incarcerated.
Rick Singer Sentenced 3.5 Years for Admissions Conspiracy
Rick Singer is given 3.5 years in prison for his leading role in a nationwide college admission conspiracy.
“This defendant was responsible for the most massive fraud ever perpetuated on the higher education system in the United States,” said prosecutor Stephen Frank to a criminal court judge on Wednesday, speaking about the accused Rick Singer, who pleaded guilty in 2019 to dozens of charges…
What’s fascinating is that both Rick and Jordan got busted by FBIs on completely unrelated matters to their shady business. Guess life finds a way when you’re too big, huh
Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal (dir. Chris Smith).
Netflix’s hybrid documentary featuring the usual talking head interviews interspersed with dramatic reenactments starring Matthew Modine based on FBI wiretap transcripts makes for a fascinating approach to its high-end true crime material.
Smith carefully breaks down the exploitation of American capitalism through the lens of the wealthy’s obsession with superficial class signifiers like education. His “side door” style of dramatizing and expressing the college admissions bribery scandal revolving around con artist Rick Singer puts as many faces to its sort shadowy yet glamorous subjects as possible.
