A father who paid bribes to get his kids into USC as part of the largest ever college admissions scandal has pleaded guilty, according to Bloomberg.
Toby MacFarlane admitted in court on Friday that he paid $450,000 in bribes and used phony athletic profiles to get his son into USC as a basketball recruit and his daughter into the school as a soccer recruit.
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud before U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston.
MacFarlane is the last of 14 parents to plead guilty as part of the scandal.
He admitted to the judge that he had committed fraud “by getting my children admission to USC as recruited athletes when in fact they’re not.”
He also admitted to conspiring with William Rick Singer, the mastermind behind the scheme, by paying him $200,000 in 2013 to fabricate a profile for his daughter, claiming she was a “U.S. Club Soccer All American” in high school. His daughter graduated from USC in 2018 but never wound up playing soccer for the university’s team.
Then, in 2016, he paid $250,000 to gain admission for his son who only attended the school briefly before withdrawing in May 2018. $200,000 of the money was claimed by MacFarlane to be for “real estate consulting” and a $50,000 payment was claimed to be for “USC athletics”.
Now, MacFarlane faces up to 15 months in prison and a fine of $95,000, in addition to restitution to be determined at a later date.
In addition to the 14 parents that have pleaded guilty, 19 others are fighting the charges filed by the US Attorney’s office. In addition, prosecutors are pursuing cases against college coaches and test administrators, among other people, who took and offered bribes at some of the country’s top colleges.
Earlier this month we noted that Stanford’s ex-sailing coach got one day in jail for his role in the scandal.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WYFgyV Tyler Durden