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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2019 16:38:25 GMT -5
You do not need to be a lawyer to know a prosecutor should not lead off 50 similar criminal indictments with the sentencing hearing of the weakest case that you have out of the 50. Why not delay this sentencing and pick one the parents that paid to cheat on the ACT, forged credentials to be pretend athlete and bribed their way into the school? Or the Yale coach, who kept the money for himself? Why would you lead with the case that likely should not have been charged in the first place??
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2019 19:37:49 GMT -5
Of the 50 people charged in this case, 22 of them have cut deals to plead guilty. These deals all vary but some seem very generous, likely because some of the cases are pretty weak. The first deal maker was up for sentencing today in Federal Court in MA. Stanford's former Sailing coach John Vandemoer ($600,000 bribe that was used by the sailing program AND the kid never accepted the admission offer) was sentenced today. The judge had a bunch of questions about the actual charges. The judge wanted the prosecution to clarify if it was an actual bribe because this case has some hair on it. It would appear he wanted the money for the sailing program and since he gave money to the Stanford sailing program, the judge is confused on how the Fed's are saying Stanford suffered a "loss". She asked if Stanford did not just give away the ill gotten money but also the equipment that was purchased ("did stanford sell the boats"?) This case is more nuanced than most. Stanford did not "lose" anything and no student was admitted (she went elsewhere) and the money was given to the sailing program. This is the weakest of the cases in my opinion with the exception of WF coach's charging (I do not think a crime occurred in either case). I am not sure this judge will see any crime was committed in the WF case at all (assuming he reported the donation to his club on his IRS filing). The school received a gain (donation), the girl is on the team and was on the wait list anyway so it will be hard to show the harm to the school. The plea deal Vandemoer made with the Feds was 13 months in a Club Fed. Defense asked just for probation. Vandemoer's childhood Rabbi (now an Admiral in the US Navy) from Cape Cod (yes near where the judge has lived for 70 years) testified and pled for leniency. The prosecutor (Rosen) has been pushing back against only probation because they say prison time 'will send a strong message to the others'. That is likely not the best argument with this judge since she is not here to judge the other 49 cases (yet) and is judge this ONE defendant. I think Rosen (the prosecutor) sounded a little weak when he was pushed on whether Stanford really was damaged. Rosen argued for prison by reading letters to the editor? (or web site postings) from the NY Times from current college applicants basically saying they had lost faith in the fairness of the system etc. "A message must be sent". The judge, Rya Zobel, is 87 years old and went to Radcliffe then Harvard Law. She has been on the Federal bench since 1979, Carter appointed her. She is a good judge. I believe she is a holocaust survivor but you find little about that anywhere in her bio. She and her brother came here from Germany in 1946 to live with an aunt and uncle and her brother worked tirelessly to improve the lives and opportunities available to mentally handicapped people in new england his entire life. She will be the judge for the other cases as well. SENTENCE: 1 day in prison, already served, $10,000 fine, 6 months home confinement. Judge says this is the least culpable person of the 50 charged. From Swimswam magazine, which covers many watersports: "....NBC reports that part of Vandemoer's lighter sentence was a product of the judge, and attorneys on both sides, agreeing that Vandemoer didn't directly use the money himself, but funneled it back into Stanford's sailing program". He also received two years of supervised release (probation). Lucky dude! One thing to know is the sailing program is a varsity club sport, not an Athletic Department sport. Wonder why some part of SU's enormous endowment does not cover such. I mean sailing is widely, stereotypically viewed as a bourgeoisie pastime: should be an endowment lock!
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Post by azvb on Jun 27, 2019 15:54:21 GMT -5
Bookkeeper, former USC coach plead guilty in admissions scandal, promise to help investigatorsFormer USC women's soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin, center, arrives at federal court Thursday to plead guilty to charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal Ali Khosroshahin, who led the USC women’s soccer program from 2007 to 2013, recruited four students to his program who had never played soccer in a competitive setting, prosecutors say. In exchange, Khosroshahin took more than $200,000 in bribes from William “Rick” Singer, the admitted architect of the test-fixing and bribery scam that exploded into public view in March. Both Masera and Khosroshahin have signed cooperation agreements, promising to tell prosecutors what they know of the scam in hopes of receiving leniency when they are sentenced. Masera will be sentenced Oct. 22; Khosroshahin, Oct. 25. Should any of the 28 defendants who have maintained their innocence go to trial, Masera and Khosroshahin could be called to testify against them. www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-college-admissions-scandal-masera-khosroshahin-plea-20190627-story.html Bad news for Donna.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jun 27, 2019 15:59:10 GMT -5
Why does that guy look like Anthony Bourdain?
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Post by Mocha on Jul 24, 2019 1:12:05 GMT -5
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Post by jma1968 on Jul 24, 2019 9:19:20 GMT -5
Did any D3 schools ever get implicated? Some of those are as "elite" as any of these high-profile D1 schools, in many cases even more so.
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Post by bigfan on Jul 24, 2019 12:08:39 GMT -5
Did any D3 schools ever get implicated? Some of those are as "elite" as any of these high-profile D1 schools, in many cases even more so. Proud to say that SCIAC (Caltech, pomona-pitzer etc) are unblemished and not sullied by this nonsense.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jul 31, 2019 12:37:22 GMT -5
This is a classic lesson about plausible deniability. Daddy says he hired Singer as a counselor, never directly paid any school, and was unaware of any lies Singer made. "Buckley spoke to her father who told them that Singer must have gone into his daughter's application and changed it without them knowing."
Is it true? Is it not? Unless there is hard evidence, we'll never know. It is of course possible that Daddy thought Singer was legit. It's also possible Daddy knew Singer was crooked and hired him as a way of keeping his daughter's hands clean.
Apparently she got into Cal with an un-Singered application anyway.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 31, 2019 13:41:03 GMT -5
I can't imagine anyone WANTING to go to Caltech by bribing officials, especially if you don't have the LOVE of and APTITUDE for math/physics/self-torture. You just can't. Not only is the curriculum rigorous, it's just HARD. Crazy hard.
My frosh year, I can't remember getting the correct answers in any homework or exam question. My first homework set in Physics, IIRC, I got a 12/100 and I covered my face with my hands and thought, "Jeez, I think I'm going to flunk out of school!" I discovered my peers got scores in the 4-8 (of 100) range and I had one of the highest grades in the class. LOL!
Edit: Also, roughly 20-25% of students transfer out either during or immediately after frosh year. Another 15% transfer out during or after soph year. So, it's not for everybody while a lot of other schools in the nation ARE for everybody.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 31, 2019 13:45:21 GMT -5
I can imagine bribing your way to get into Brown as they allow self-designed majors and offer many many pass/fail classes. In fact, all the Brown graduates I've met in my life -- I've met 7-8 of them -- are total idiots and I would never hire them for any job. I know, I know, small sample size.
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Post by jcvball22 on Jul 31, 2019 16:40:11 GMT -5
I can imagine bribing your way to get into Brown as they allow self-designed majors and offer many many pass/fail classes. In fact, all the Brown graduates I've met in my life -- I've met 7-8 of them -- are total idiots and I would never hire them for any job. I know, I know, small sample size. That's as close to an eye roll as I can find.
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Post by pepperbrooks on Jul 31, 2019 17:49:36 GMT -5
I can imagine bribing your way to get into Brown as they allow self-designed majors and offer many many pass/fail classes. In fact, all the Brown graduates I've met in my life -- I've met 7-8 of them -- are total idiots and I would never hire them for any job. I know, I know, small sample size. Well case closed then...
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Post by Fight On! on Jul 31, 2019 21:53:49 GMT -5
I can't imagine anyone WANTING to go to Caltech by bribing officials, especially if you don't have the LOVE of and APTITUDE for math/physics/self-torture. You just can't. Not only is the curriculum rigorous, it's just HARD. Crazy hard. My frosh year, I can't remember getting the correct answers in any homework or exam question. My first homework set in Physics, IIRC, I got a 12/100 and I covered my face with my hands and thought, "Jeez, I think I'm going to flunk out of school!" I discovered my peers got scores in the 4-8 (of 100) range and I had one of the highest grades in the class. LOL! Edit: Also, roughly 20-25% of students transfer out either during or immediately after frosh year. Another 15% transfer out during or after soph year. So, it's not for everybody while a lot of other schools in the nation ARE for everybody. I used to drive up to CalTech to party at the crazy people dorms with the weirdos because a high school friend was there. We did that party every year where you enter via the underground tunnels.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 31, 2019 21:57:32 GMT -5
I can't imagine anyone WANTING to go to Caltech by bribing officials, especially if you don't have the LOVE of and APTITUDE for math/physics/self-torture. You just can't. Not only is the curriculum rigorous, it's just HARD. Crazy hard. My frosh year, I can't remember getting the correct answers in any homework or exam question. My first homework set in Physics, IIRC, I got a 12/100 and I covered my face with my hands and thought, "Jeez, I think I'm going to flunk out of school!" I discovered my peers got scores in the 4-8 (of 100) range and I had one of the highest grades in the class. LOL! Edit: Also, roughly 20-25% of students transfer out either during or immediately after frosh year. Another 15% transfer out during or after soph year. So, it's not for everybody while a lot of other schools in the nation ARE for everybody. I used to drive up to CalTech to party at the crazy people dorms with the weirdos because a high school friend was there. We did that party every year where you enter via the underground tunnels. Not a lot of students actually go to the underground tunnels. I've only been there once (and only traversed 100 feet, at most) and had no desire whatsoever to go again. We had more urgent things to do.
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Post by BearClause on Aug 1, 2019 0:49:52 GMT -5
Did any D3 schools ever get implicated? Some of those are as "elite" as any of these high-profile D1 schools, in many cases even more so. No. All had D-I athletic programs. However, quite a few of those implicated only seemed to be ones where there was fraud in the testing process and nobody at the school was suspected of any wrongdoing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal#Universities_and_accused_personnelI'm pretty sure trying to cheat on the test scores could have been for almost any student apply to any school. I wouldn't surprise me if some parent somewhere paid a "consultant" for a similar program to try and get a kid into the University of Chicago as an example. But for some reason Singer seemed to only recommend D-I schools. I guess the most hilarious was the Chinese mom who apparently isn't in trouble even though she paid a few million dollars that got her daughter into Yale. The story is that mom thought it was a legitimate "donation" and had no idea about the athletics angle. And originally she wanted the kid to go to Columbia or Oxford and had never heard of Yale. I guess Singer steered her to Yale because he had that connection to the soccer coach.
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