1
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[woman 1] I'm about to check
my USC decision.

2
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I know it'll be okay if I don't.
I saw a lot of people got rejected, so…

3
00:00:14,035 --> 00:00:16,245
I'm already on the page.
It says "status update."

4
00:00:16,328 --> 00:00:18,205
-[woman 2] "New update."
-I clicked it.

5
00:00:18,289 --> 00:00:19,832
Okay, status update.

6
00:00:19,915 --> 00:00:21,959
This is my ultimate dream school.

7
00:00:22,043 --> 00:00:23,919
I'm getting rejected. I already know.

8
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I just clicked it. Oh, my God.

9
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[gasping]

10
00:00:30,676 --> 00:00:31,802
Oh, my God.

11
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Wait, I got accepted!

12
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[screams]

13
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Oh, my God!

14
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[screaming]

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-Yeah!
-[crying]

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[all screaming and cheering]

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[woman 3] This is some crazy stuff.

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00:00:45,983 --> 00:00:47,318
Let's talk about this.

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There's been a firestorm of news coverage
on a sort of college admissions scandal.

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Explosive details
about the largest college admissions scam

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00:00:54,784 --> 00:00:57,119
prosecuted by
the Department of Justice ever.

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Our friends are talking about one thing,
this story. It's hit a real nerve.

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[reporter 1] Real estate executives,
a lawyer, doctor and a litany of CEOs,

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all facing criminal charges.

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[reporter 2] An FBI investigation
called Operation Varsity Blues.

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Operation Varsity Blues.

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Operation Varsity Blues.

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[reporter 3] How are you
after the scandal?

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-[reporter 4] Are you sorry?
-[reporter 5] Singer designed the scam

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and collected tens of millions of dollars.

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[reporter 6] Parents paid him top dollar
to pass their kids off as star athletes.

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-[reporter 7] Rick Singer.
-Rick Singer.

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-[reporter 8] Rick Singer.
-[reporter 9] Rick Singer.

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[reporter 11] The mastermind
behind the operation.

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[reporter 12] It is sending shockwaves
across the country.

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[alarm ringing]

37
00:01:48,963 --> 00:01:50,422
[tense music playing]

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[Singer on phone] The money goes
into my foundation as a donation.

39
00:02:06,522 --> 00:02:09,441
[John Wilson on phone] To your foundation?
Not to the schools.

40
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[Singer] Yeah, that way the kids
don't know it happens, right?

41
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You make a financial commitment.

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What school you want
may determine how much that actually is.

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[Wilson] And so, in terms of things
that are more than half million or 300,

44
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what's that set of schools?

45
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[Singer] So that's, uh, Georgetown,
Boston College, Georgia Tech,

46
00:02:28,711 --> 00:02:32,089
USC, UCLA, Berkeley, you know.

47
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[Wilson] Okay, that's… that's not bad.

48
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[Gordon Caplan]
She's not a terrific student.

49
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She's been testing very badly.

50
00:02:38,554 --> 00:02:41,557
[Michelle Janavs] She's smart.
She's gonna figure this out.

51
00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:44,185
She already thinks
I'm up to, like, no good.

52
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[Wilson] Uh, is Harvard easier
'cause of legacy?

53
00:02:46,729 --> 00:02:47,938
[Singer] No, it's not.

54
00:02:48,022 --> 00:02:51,400
-[Wilson] That doesn't mean shit?
-[Singer] Your legacy means zero because…

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[Wilson] Unless we're donating
to a building, huh?

56
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[Caplan] I went to Cornell.

57
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I've already given around $750,000 there.

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[Singer] Let's be frank, right?

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Your 750 is diddly-dink in the world.

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I know people
who have given $50 million to Cornell.

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[Jane Buckingham] Uh, will you send me
where and how I should send the check?

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[Singer] Oh, yeah. We'll send it so that
you get your IRS tax write-off.

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-[Buckingham] Even better.
-[Wilson] What if they don't get in?

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[Singer chuckles] You don't have to worry.
It's a done deal.

65
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[Wilson] Is there a two-for-one
special for twins?

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[Singer] John, how are you?

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[Wilson] Hey, Rick.
You're pretty busy these days, huh?

68
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Yeah, we got early decision coming up.

69
00:03:51,293 --> 00:03:55,256
So, hey, I do wanna talk a bit about
your pricing strategy and economic model.

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00:03:55,839 --> 00:03:56,674
Uh…

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00:03:56,757 --> 00:04:00,135
I don't wanna force it on you,
but I just think it could be helpful.

72
00:04:00,511 --> 00:04:02,012
No, no, uh, yeah.

73
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I have a bunch of schools
that we work with directly

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and, you know,
it's kind of a first come, first served.

75
00:04:14,441 --> 00:04:16,527
So… pick a place you wanna go.

76
00:04:16,610 --> 00:04:18,070
So, if you said Harvard

77
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or Princeton or Georgetown,
you know, one of those things.

78
00:04:21,115 --> 00:04:25,077
Well, if you wanna use my side door
at Harvard, it's about $1.2 million.

79
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Jesus.

80
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But if you wanna go through the back door,
Harvard's asking for $45 million.

81
00:04:30,541 --> 00:04:32,876
-God.
-Stanford's asking for $50 million.

82
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-Wow.
-And they're getting it.

83
00:04:34,545 --> 00:04:35,921
That's the crazy thing.

84
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They're getting it
from the Bay Area and New York.

85
00:04:38,716 --> 00:04:41,176
John, this is how crazy it's gotten.

86
00:04:41,260 --> 00:04:44,305
I'm gonna do
over 730 of these side doors this year.

87
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[Wilson] Wow.

88
00:04:45,389 --> 00:04:47,766
And how many schools
are you doing those at now?

89
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Just like the top 20 or 50 or…

90
00:04:50,144 --> 00:04:52,396
[Robert Fisher] I've done a lot
of wiretaps over the years.

91
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It truly is amazing sometimes
what people will say on the phone

92
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when they don't know
that the feds are listening.

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I know. I know.
It's craziness. I know it is.

94
00:05:00,988 --> 00:05:04,491
Then I need you to get him into USC,
and then I need you to cure cancer,

95
00:05:04,575 --> 00:05:06,410
and, oh, make peace in the Middle East.

96
00:05:06,493 --> 00:05:07,536
I could do that.

97
00:05:07,619 --> 00:05:10,748
I could do that if you figure out a way
to boot your husband out

98
00:05:10,831 --> 00:05:12,207
so that he treats you better.

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[woman] That's impossible.
That is impossible.

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[Fisher] The government did a wiretap
on Rick's phone. He didn't know.

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He was intercepted talking to many people.

102
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Every working mom comes to me
and says, "How do I do it all?"

103
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Well, guess what? You can't.

104
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There aren't many federal cases where
you have 50 people indicted for a crime.

105
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So we're trying to get ourselves,
like, a 34 on the ACT.

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[woman] Yeah. Yeah.

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[Singer] So Mark will do that.
Really could be a 33.

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-Could be a 34. Could be a 35.
-[woman] Right.

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[Singer] Can you get me
a handwriting sample?

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-[woman] Yep.
-And a signature sample.

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-So we can get kinda close.
-[woman] Yes.

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[Daniel Golden] Rick Singer was
the independent counselor

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who orchestrated the wrongdoing
in Operation Varsity Blues,

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and the court documents
indicate that it started in 2011.

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My own research
into Singer's life and career

116
00:06:01,799 --> 00:06:04,468
indicates that, on a smaller scale,

117
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he was deceptive for decades before that.

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[Margie Amott] I'd like to think
Rick started out

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trying to be professional
and trying to be legitimate.

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For a number of years,
Rick was the go-to person.

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He was the only one in town
who did this sort of thing.

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If you wanted information about
college admissions, you went to Rick.

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I think people were eager to use him.
They were excited.

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They were impressed and thought,
"Wow, he knows the formula."

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"He knows the rules.
He has the key to the game."

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[Akil Bello] If you're a well-to-do parent
in a school with 500 seniors,

127
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your child is getting a fraction
of the attention you want them to get.

128
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So you do what you do.
You apply money to the problem.

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You find somebody who will
independently help just your child,

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and help them through this process.

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And that's sort of the genesis
of an independent college counselor.

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My parents said, "We're hiring
an independent college counselor

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who can help give you
a little guidance on SAT prep,

134
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and help narrow your focus
for the colleges you're interested in."

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"He'll be a presence in your life

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for the foreseeable future,
until college applications are in."

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[Golden] I believe there were
many students he worked with

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who had very good credentials,

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and he performed
the normal services of a counselor

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and facilitated their admission to college

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by advising them on their essays
or their recommendations and so on.

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He was the go-to
college counselor at that time.

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Back then, there weren't many resources.

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He had this company called Future Stars.
I had many friends that used him.

145
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It was one of those things
where you had to do it.

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If you didn't,
you'd regret it and worry about,

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"Did I get into where I wanted to go?
Could I have gotten in if I'd used him?"

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He always dressed like he had
just come from the basketball court.

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[Patricia Fels] His idea was that
what he was doing was

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coaching kids for getting into college,

151
00:08:02,294 --> 00:08:04,505
so therefore he dressed like a coach.

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[Amott] He used to walk around
in his athletic clothes,

153
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and his little monk hairdo.

154
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He wasn't necessarily charismatic.

155
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Didn't crack a lot of smiles.
Was pretty serious.

156
00:08:13,430 --> 00:08:16,099
Very shrewd. Businesslike.

157
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He didn't chat much.
He wasn't very personable.

158
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There are people you meet who feel
like they have this vibrating tension

159
00:08:23,607 --> 00:08:27,069
right under the surface
all the time, and he was like that.

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[Amott] Rick was always
drumming up business.

161
00:08:32,157 --> 00:08:36,620
He was always giving presentations
at Borders, at the country clubs.

162
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And I also knew
what his presentations entailed,

163
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and they were promises
that he couldn't keep and…

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lies.

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[Fels] I would hear some stories
from kids that made me think

166
00:08:47,464 --> 00:08:49,967
that he was a little bit fishy.

167
00:08:50,050 --> 00:08:51,885
A little bit slimy.

168
00:08:51,969 --> 00:08:57,516
I have one acquaintance
who said that Rick started offering him,

169
00:08:57,599 --> 00:09:00,561
"Hey, I could potentially
get you into this school

170
00:09:00,644 --> 00:09:02,521
for a certain amount of money."

171
00:09:03,021 --> 00:09:04,398
[talking indistinctly]

172
00:09:04,481 --> 00:09:06,108
[Golden] Almost from the beginning,

173
00:09:06,191 --> 00:09:09,194
Rick Singer was cutting corners,
at least in a small way.

174
00:09:09,278 --> 00:09:12,364
The word I got from people
who knew him in Sacramento

175
00:09:12,447 --> 00:09:16,326
was he was exaggerating and fabricating
on kids' applications.

176
00:09:16,410 --> 00:09:19,580
You know,
changing their race from white to Latino

177
00:09:19,663 --> 00:09:23,125
or African American so that they
could qualify for affirmative action.

178
00:09:23,208 --> 00:09:24,918
I mean, he was quite brazen.

179
00:09:25,919 --> 00:09:29,423
Because I was always suspicious
of Rick Singer, I started to keep a file.

180
00:09:29,506 --> 00:09:31,925
I started copying things off his website.

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00:09:32,009 --> 00:09:35,470
"The Singer Group has developed
into one of the US's most successful

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00:09:35,554 --> 00:09:38,098
life coaching and consulting businesses."

183
00:09:38,181 --> 00:09:41,101
"Within a year, operations
launched in Singapore, Bangkok,

184
00:09:41,184 --> 00:09:43,395
Philippines, China, Japan and Korea."

185
00:09:43,478 --> 00:09:46,648
Rick Singer was frequently telling lies
about his resume.

186
00:09:46,732 --> 00:09:51,153
Somebody told me that he pretended
he'd been a board member of Starbucks.

187
00:09:51,236 --> 00:09:54,239
The more he got away with it,
the more he did it.

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00:09:59,578 --> 00:10:02,205
[reporter 1] We're still on
the preliminary part of the case.

189
00:10:02,289 --> 00:10:05,584
But both indictments brought against him
were incredibly detailed.

190
00:10:05,667 --> 00:10:06,627
[cell phone rings]

191
00:10:06,710 --> 00:10:09,463
-There appears to be a lot of evidence…
-Yeah.

192
00:10:09,546 --> 00:10:12,382
[Singer on phone]
Is this Gordon Gekko of Wall Street?

193
00:10:13,008 --> 00:10:16,595
No, it's Gordon Caplan. How are you?

194
00:10:16,678 --> 00:10:18,847
I'm just kidding with you. How you doing?

195
00:10:18,930 --> 00:10:20,182
Yeah. Yeah. Good.

196
00:10:21,350 --> 00:10:23,268
[reporter 2] Corporate deal lawyer
Gordon Caplan,

197
00:10:23,352 --> 00:10:26,146
a partner at the law firm
of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

198
00:10:27,105 --> 00:10:30,484
[Caplan] The US tax system
has two fundamental components

199
00:10:30,567 --> 00:10:33,528
which makes this somewhat alluring.

200
00:10:33,612 --> 00:10:37,407
My wife has told me
a little bit about what you guys do.

201
00:10:37,491 --> 00:10:41,411
Uh, could… could you just
give me a little bit of background?

202
00:10:41,495 --> 00:10:43,497
[Singer] Okay. So, who we are.

203
00:10:43,580 --> 00:10:48,502
We are a $290 million company that I own,

204
00:10:48,585 --> 00:10:53,048
with a thousand employees
across the US, 280 internationally.

205
00:10:53,131 --> 00:10:57,135
We help the wealthiest families
in the US get their kids into school.

206
00:10:57,219 --> 00:11:00,555
We have every NBA owner, every NFL owner.

207
00:11:00,639 --> 00:11:02,182
We've got everybody.

208
00:11:02,265 --> 00:11:05,602
Now, these families, they want guarantees.

209
00:11:05,686 --> 00:11:07,562
They don't wanna be messing around.

210
00:11:07,646 --> 00:11:11,274
They want this thing done.
So they want in at certain schools.

211
00:11:11,358 --> 00:11:14,653
So I've done 761,
what I would call, "side doors."

212
00:11:14,736 --> 00:11:17,072
The "front door"
means getting in on your own.

213
00:11:17,155 --> 00:11:21,326
The "back door" is making a donation,
which is ten times as much money.

214
00:11:21,410 --> 00:11:23,662
I've created this kind of side door in

215
00:11:23,745 --> 00:11:26,581
because with the back door,
there's no guarantee.

216
00:11:26,665 --> 00:11:28,875
They're just gonna give you a second look.

217
00:11:29,459 --> 00:11:32,003
My families want a guarantee.

218
00:11:36,550 --> 00:11:38,885
[officer] I'm a special agent
with the FBI.

219
00:11:38,969 --> 00:11:42,681
I'm currently part of a squad
that investigates economic crimes,

220
00:11:42,764 --> 00:11:47,144
including various forms of corporate
fraud, securities fraud and bribery.

221
00:11:47,644 --> 00:11:50,313
The facts in this affidavit
come from my personal involvement

222
00:11:50,397 --> 00:11:52,149
with this investigation.

223
00:11:52,816 --> 00:11:55,777
Hi, my name is Rick Singer,
and I'm the founder of The Key.

224
00:11:56,361 --> 00:11:58,864
[officer] Rick Singer founded
and operated The Key,

225
00:11:58,947 --> 00:12:02,075
a for-profit college counseling
and preparation business.

226
00:12:02,159 --> 00:12:04,828
He also founded
The Key Worldwide Foundation,

227
00:12:05,412 --> 00:12:09,833
a non-profit corporation that
is exempt from paying federal income tax.

228
00:12:09,916 --> 00:12:14,087
Rick Singer told parents that he could
facilitate their children's admission

229
00:12:14,171 --> 00:12:15,922
via what he termed "the side door,"

230
00:12:16,006 --> 00:12:20,677
a special arrangement in which the parents
would make a donation to his foundation

231
00:12:20,761 --> 00:12:24,181
to conceal the fact
that they were bribe payments.

232
00:12:25,432 --> 00:12:28,560
Between approximately 2011 and 2018,

233
00:12:28,643 --> 00:12:31,605
parents paid Singer
approximately $25 million

234
00:12:31,688 --> 00:12:34,649
to bribe coaches
and university administrators.

235
00:12:35,901 --> 00:12:38,653
This is America. Like, you got money?

236
00:12:39,362 --> 00:12:42,991
Best believe you have access to
certain spaces that other kids don't have.

237
00:12:43,074 --> 00:12:45,327
So I'm… I'm really not surprised…

238
00:12:45,410 --> 00:12:47,579
[Jon Reider] Over the last
three or four decades,

239
00:12:47,662 --> 00:12:51,833
higher education
has become increasingly a commodity.

240
00:12:51,917 --> 00:12:55,086
Something that you purchase. A product.

241
00:12:55,170 --> 00:13:00,425
It's a goal in and of itself, rather than
the goal being to get an education.

242
00:13:00,509 --> 00:13:02,969
It's become a status point.

243
00:13:03,553 --> 00:13:05,889
Your status has now increased

244
00:13:05,972 --> 00:13:09,684
because your child is at
what's called an "elite institution."

245
00:13:09,768 --> 00:13:11,937
It's all about bragging rights.

246
00:13:12,020 --> 00:13:16,149
The running line in our industry is like,
"The parents are applying to college."

247
00:13:16,233 --> 00:13:19,528
"The kid is the vehicle
through which they apply to college."

248
00:13:19,611 --> 00:13:21,196
If you're a freshman, I'm sorry,

249
00:13:21,279 --> 00:13:25,617
because you are gonna be thrown
into a world where they're gonna be like,

250
00:13:25,700 --> 00:13:27,452
"College, college, college."

251
00:13:27,536 --> 00:13:29,663
"Go to college.
You have to get the best grades."

252
00:13:29,746 --> 00:13:33,708
"If you're not, you're gonna feel
like a failure. You're the worst."

253
00:13:33,792 --> 00:13:36,336
If you're a parent
and you didn't go to Harvard,

254
00:13:36,419 --> 00:13:40,131
this is your chance to now
go to Harvard, right? In your warped mind.

255
00:13:42,133 --> 00:13:45,804
[Bello] It's typically accepted
that Ivy League institutions

256
00:13:45,887 --> 00:13:48,640
are the "best" in the country.

257
00:13:48,723 --> 00:13:53,728
But all of those differences
have almost nothing to do

258
00:13:53,812 --> 00:13:57,023
with the academics of the institution.

259
00:13:58,024 --> 00:14:00,861
U.S. News started
ranking colleges in the '80s,

260
00:14:00,944 --> 00:14:03,822
based on one criteria: prestige.

261
00:14:03,905 --> 00:14:05,740
That's it. [chuckles] That's it.

262
00:14:05,824 --> 00:14:08,326
"Prestige" is actually a French word.

263
00:14:08,952 --> 00:14:12,747
In the original French,
it means something people don't realize.

264
00:14:12,831 --> 00:14:14,332
It means "deceit."

265
00:14:14,416 --> 00:14:16,793
That's what prestige is in the college.

266
00:14:16,877 --> 00:14:20,463
It's imaginary. It's an illusion.
Yet people believe in it.

267
00:14:21,006 --> 00:14:22,799
It's not just population growth

268
00:14:22,883 --> 00:14:25,510
that makes it harder
to get into colleges today.

269
00:14:25,594 --> 00:14:28,179
The colleges themselves
have brought it about.

270
00:14:28,263 --> 00:14:32,017
Because the more selective they look
on paper, the higher ranked they are.

271
00:14:32,100 --> 00:14:36,229
Everything these schools are doing is
massaging to try and up the rankings.

272
00:14:36,313 --> 00:14:38,273
And it's a really dangerous game.

273
00:14:38,982 --> 00:14:41,234
[Golden] Most people
see college admissions,

274
00:14:41,318 --> 00:14:45,155
"Oh, it's based on merit except for
affirmative action for minorities."

275
00:14:45,238 --> 00:14:49,659
My view of the admissions process
is all sorts of different preferences,

276
00:14:49,743 --> 00:14:52,662
with, yes, some students
getting in on pure merit,

277
00:14:52,746 --> 00:14:56,917
but many others getting in due to
preferences that skew rich and white.

278
00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:02,130
One is by preferences
for students who play niche sports,

279
00:15:02,213 --> 00:15:05,926
like sailing or fencing
or horseback riding,

280
00:15:06,009 --> 00:15:08,553
which most kids never get a chance to try.

281
00:15:08,637 --> 00:15:11,890
Then there's making
a huge donation to a university.

282
00:15:11,973 --> 00:15:14,726
That gets them noticed
by the fundraising office,

283
00:15:14,809 --> 00:15:17,646
which will recommend
the candidate to admissions.

284
00:15:18,229 --> 00:15:21,900
Jared Kushner was the son
of a very wealthy real estate developer

285
00:15:21,983 --> 00:15:23,068
in New Jersey.

286
00:15:23,151 --> 00:15:25,987
At the time Jared was applying to college,

287
00:15:26,071 --> 00:15:29,157
his father pledged
$2.5 million to Harvard,

288
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:31,368
and Jared was admitted to Harvard,

289
00:15:31,451 --> 00:15:34,287
even though by all accounts
he was an average student

290
00:15:34,371 --> 00:15:37,874
who wasn't necessarily taking
the toughest courses in his high school.

291
00:15:38,625 --> 00:15:41,419
A lot of the colleges
won't actually guarantee the admission,

292
00:15:41,503 --> 00:15:42,754
which is interesting.

293
00:15:42,837 --> 00:15:46,341
So you might write a check for $3 million,
and the kid could be rejected.

294
00:15:46,424 --> 00:15:49,219
If you're not writing
a $10 to $20 million dollar check,

295
00:15:49,302 --> 00:15:51,429
it doesn't move
the needle enough for them.

296
00:15:52,639 --> 00:15:56,476
[Golden] Singer didn't demand
the kind of money that is required today

297
00:15:56,559 --> 00:15:59,521
if you want to absolutely guarantee
your kid's gonna get in.

298
00:15:59,604 --> 00:16:04,985
You know, these parents paid Singer
$300,000, $400,000, $500,000.

299
00:16:05,068 --> 00:16:07,028
What he sold and what they bought

300
00:16:07,112 --> 00:16:11,533
was essentially a certainty of admission
at a bargain basement price.

301
00:16:12,867 --> 00:16:14,869
So I'm gonna make him a kicker.

302
00:16:14,953 --> 00:16:17,831
He does have strong legs.
Maybe he'll become a kicker.

303
00:16:17,914 --> 00:16:19,749
-You never know.
-Yeah. Absolutely.

304
00:16:19,833 --> 00:16:21,334
You could inspire him, Rick.

305
00:16:21,418 --> 00:16:23,837
You may actually turn him
into something. I love it.

306
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:25,839
[chuckles] Yeah. I know.

307
00:16:25,922 --> 00:16:28,633
-Bill McGlashan, good to see you.
-Nice to be here.

308
00:16:28,717 --> 00:16:32,053
TPG Growth is a firm
people don't know that much about.

309
00:16:32,137 --> 00:16:34,848
[reporter] TPG Growth
is the $4 billion growth arm

310
00:16:34,931 --> 00:16:37,684
of the private equity giant TPG Capital.

311
00:16:37,767 --> 00:16:41,396
The more successful the business is,
the more impact you're creating.

312
00:16:41,479 --> 00:16:45,817
You get the virtuous benefits of
sustainable, scalable capitalism at work.

313
00:16:46,735 --> 00:16:49,612
[Singer] Last year I had a boy,
I made him a long snapper.

314
00:16:49,696 --> 00:16:50,530
I love it.

315
00:16:50,613 --> 00:16:54,034
He was 145 pounds. Long snapper.

316
00:16:54,117 --> 00:16:56,369
[chuckles] So what I'll probably need is,

317
00:16:56,453 --> 00:16:59,330
if you guys have any pictures
of him playing multiple sports,

318
00:16:59,414 --> 00:17:02,792
that will be helpful, because I will
photoshop his face onto a kicker.

319
00:17:02,876 --> 00:17:06,004
[chuckling] Okay. Okay, let me
look through what I have.

320
00:17:06,713 --> 00:17:09,382
Pretty funny the way the world
works these days, it's…

321
00:17:10,008 --> 00:17:10,967
unbelievable.

322
00:17:18,767 --> 00:17:21,603
[reporter] Devin Sloane, he's a
California businessman, an executive.

323
00:17:21,686 --> 00:17:24,189
We've had the good fortune of knowing you

324
00:17:24,272 --> 00:17:27,525
and sharing smiles
and joy and laughter together.

325
00:17:32,572 --> 00:17:35,533
[Singer] Last year, I had a boy
who did the water polo.

326
00:17:35,617 --> 00:17:38,787
When the dad sent me the picture,
he was too high out of the water.

327
00:17:38,870 --> 00:17:41,247
Nobody would believe
anybody could get that high.

328
00:17:41,331 --> 00:17:42,373
[McGlashan] Yeah.

329
00:17:42,457 --> 00:17:44,000
[Singer] So I told the dad, I said,

330
00:17:44,084 --> 00:17:46,961
"What happened?" He said,
"He was standing on the bottom."

331
00:17:47,045 --> 00:17:49,547
I said, "No, no, no, no, no."

332
00:17:49,631 --> 00:17:52,300
Yeah, exactly.
You gotta be swimming. Exactly.

333
00:17:52,383 --> 00:17:54,552
-That's right.
-Now, does he…

334
00:17:54,636 --> 00:17:57,639
Here's the only question.
Does he… Does he know?

335
00:17:57,722 --> 00:18:02,018
Is there a way to do it in a way
where he doesn't know what happened?

336
00:18:02,102 --> 00:18:06,022
Well, what I would say to him,
if you wanna have that discussion now,

337
00:18:06,106 --> 00:18:08,900
is say we have friends in athletics
who are going to help him.

338
00:18:08,983 --> 00:18:10,485
Because he is an athlete.

339
00:18:10,568 --> 00:18:14,155
But I can't say that in front of my son
'cause he knows he's not.

340
00:18:14,239 --> 00:18:16,908
What he would know is
that I'm going to take his stuff

341
00:18:16,991 --> 00:18:18,618
and get him some help, okay?

342
00:18:18,701 --> 00:18:20,370
That he would have no issue with,

343
00:18:20,453 --> 00:18:23,623
you lobbying for him,
you helping use your network.

344
00:18:24,332 --> 00:18:27,210
-No issue.
-You don't have to tell him a thing.

345
00:18:27,293 --> 00:18:29,629
[Agustin Huneeus] Is Bill McGlashan
doing any of this shit?

346
00:18:29,712 --> 00:18:31,881
Is he just talking a clean game
and helping his kid?

347
00:18:31,965 --> 00:18:33,716
-He makes me feel guilty.
-[Singer] Um…

348
00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:37,220
Or you taking care of him
because you have other interests with him?

349
00:18:37,303 --> 00:18:40,431
No. No, not at all.
It has nothing to do with his--

350
00:18:40,515 --> 00:18:43,184
But he didn't know. His kid had no idea.

351
00:18:43,268 --> 00:18:45,645
He didn't have any idea
you helped him on the ACT.

352
00:18:45,728 --> 00:18:47,772
-That's what he asked for.
-Bill McGlashan?

353
00:18:47,856 --> 00:18:49,649
Asked for his son not knowing.

354
00:18:49,732 --> 00:18:51,234
-Okay.
-All right.

355
00:18:51,317 --> 00:18:53,903
-So he's not been as forthcoming.
-With me?

356
00:18:53,987 --> 00:18:55,947
With you and with his own kid.

357
00:18:56,573 --> 00:18:57,824
He wants it that way.

358
00:18:58,783 --> 00:18:59,868
[Singer] Your guy Agustin?

359
00:18:59,951 --> 00:19:01,327
[McGlashan] Agustin Huneeus, yeah.

360
00:19:01,411 --> 00:19:04,831
He's pushing hard, trying to find out
your guys' approach with your son.

361
00:19:04,914 --> 00:19:06,958
He came to me, and I said I did not…

362
00:19:07,041 --> 00:19:09,544
I was not willing to talk to him about it.

363
00:19:09,627 --> 00:19:10,962
He's been pushing me, too.

364
00:19:11,045 --> 00:19:14,174
He obviously wants to get your help,
you know, with his daughter,

365
00:19:14,257 --> 00:19:18,178
and I just said, "You need to
make your own call what you wanna do,

366
00:19:18,261 --> 00:19:21,723
and you just need to talk
to Rick and work with Rick."

367
00:19:21,806 --> 00:19:22,932
No, that's good.

368
00:19:23,016 --> 00:19:26,102
He's pushing hard. Like,
"You gotta tell me what they're doing."

369
00:19:26,186 --> 00:19:30,231
I said, "Listen, this is their situation,
and Bill is very connected.

370
00:19:30,315 --> 00:19:33,234
You need to discuss this with Bill,
not discuss it with me."

371
00:19:33,318 --> 00:19:35,403
Well, he tried that. He tried that.

372
00:19:35,486 --> 00:19:38,698
Just so you know, he sort of
had a conversation with another family

373
00:19:38,781 --> 00:19:42,535
about the side door approach
you have and was sort of suggesting,

374
00:19:42,619 --> 00:19:45,371
"Do you think this is right?"
And I just said,

375
00:19:45,455 --> 00:19:48,166
"Agustin, you shouldn't be
talking about this.

376
00:19:48,249 --> 00:19:51,377
What Rick does
is very specific to circumstances."

377
00:19:51,461 --> 00:19:54,714
And it just bothered me
he's out there talking about it.

378
00:19:54,797 --> 00:19:56,758
Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. And that's…

379
00:19:56,841 --> 00:19:58,801
And that's what worries me, too.

380
00:19:58,885 --> 00:20:02,513
I said, "Listen, you are in
a very competitive environment."

381
00:20:02,597 --> 00:20:05,058
"You have to keep what you do
to yourself.

382
00:20:05,141 --> 00:20:06,517
It will blow up on you.

383
00:20:06,601 --> 00:20:08,895
No matter who you think you know,
it doesn't matter."

384
00:20:08,978 --> 00:20:11,481
That's right,
and he's not discreet at all.

385
00:20:11,564 --> 00:20:14,192
That's why I wasn't comfortable
talking to him about it.

386
00:20:14,275 --> 00:20:15,652
-Good.
-Right.

387
00:20:16,569 --> 00:20:19,739
Rick Singer provided reassurance.

388
00:20:19,822 --> 00:20:23,284
The reassurance
that other people just like you

389
00:20:23,368 --> 00:20:25,536
are going through this thing.

390
00:20:25,620 --> 00:20:27,956
"I've dealt with this a million times."

391
00:20:28,039 --> 00:20:31,751
Rick was like a therapist or a life coach,

392
00:20:31,834 --> 00:20:34,170
only he was also a criminal.

393
00:20:34,879 --> 00:20:38,675
[Justin Paperny] My profile of Rick Singer
is he's a born salesman.

394
00:20:38,758 --> 00:20:40,677
He was smooth and subtle,

395
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:43,388
not overbearing,
and knew that he had time.

396
00:20:43,471 --> 00:20:45,682
It's not like someone
has to get into school today.

397
00:20:45,765 --> 00:20:48,393
It's not like the test is tomorrow.
They have time.

398
00:20:48,476 --> 00:20:51,896
So he nurtured the process well,
like a good salesman does.

399
00:20:51,980 --> 00:20:54,399
So what sport would be the best for them?

400
00:20:54,482 --> 00:20:57,694
Is… is crew the best?
Is that even gonna really matter?

401
00:20:57,777 --> 00:20:59,279
For me, it doesn't matter.

402
00:20:59,362 --> 00:21:02,282
I'll make him a sailor or something
because of where you live.

403
00:21:03,950 --> 00:21:06,369
[reporter] Massachusetts businessman
John Wilson.

404
00:21:06,452 --> 00:21:08,288
He runs a private equity firm.

405
00:21:08,371 --> 00:21:10,790
He's accused of paying
more than a million dollars

406
00:21:10,873 --> 00:21:13,835
to try to get his kids
into elite universities.

407
00:21:13,918 --> 00:21:17,380
And same kinda deal? Any sport?
You don't have to play the sport?

408
00:21:17,463 --> 00:21:18,715
[Singer] That's correct.

409
00:21:19,424 --> 00:21:23,553
Now, um… what if
they don't actually get in?

410
00:21:23,636 --> 00:21:26,806
[chuckles] You don't have to
worry about it. It's a done deal.

411
00:21:26,889 --> 00:21:28,808
Okay. That's great.

412
00:21:28,891 --> 00:21:32,270
Okay. I'll send you the information
about the bank and the wiring stuff

413
00:21:32,353 --> 00:21:33,688
in the next day or so.

414
00:21:33,771 --> 00:21:34,605
All right.

415
00:21:34,689 --> 00:21:37,483
Oh, by the way,
mark your calendar for next July

416
00:21:37,567 --> 00:21:39,777
if you want in on, uh, Paris.

417
00:21:39,861 --> 00:21:42,530
-Got a big birthday July 19.
-Okay.

418
00:21:42,613 --> 00:21:45,283
-I rented out Versailles.
-[chuckles] Oh, my God!

419
00:21:45,366 --> 00:21:46,659
You're crazy.

420
00:21:46,743 --> 00:21:50,163
I know. A black tie party there,
so you'll have to come.

421
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:55,335
One of the amazing things
about Rick Singer is that this guy,

422
00:21:55,418 --> 00:21:59,422
from a kind of obscure background
and without a lot to show on paper,

423
00:21:59,505 --> 00:22:02,633
insinuated himself
into quite a high social circle,

424
00:22:02,717 --> 00:22:05,136
and made an awful lot of money doing it.

425
00:22:07,638 --> 00:22:11,184
My sense was that Rick Singer
had a somewhat unhappy childhood.

426
00:22:11,267 --> 00:22:13,603
His parents divorced when he was young.

427
00:22:13,686 --> 00:22:17,315
He was bright. He had
the gift of the gab unquestionably.

428
00:22:17,398 --> 00:22:20,026
After childhood,
he went to several colleges.

429
00:22:20,109 --> 00:22:21,986
After that, he went into coaching.

430
00:22:22,070 --> 00:22:26,866
But his problem was he was too volatile,
particularly as a high school coach.

431
00:22:26,949 --> 00:22:30,161
He tended to scream at the players
if something went wrong.

432
00:22:30,244 --> 00:22:32,914
Kind of like the Bobby Knight
of high school coaching.

433
00:22:32,997 --> 00:22:36,292
When Sacramento State had a bad year,
they went 4 and 24 one year,

434
00:22:36,376 --> 00:22:39,754
the whole coaching staff was fired,
and that included Singer.

435
00:22:39,837 --> 00:22:42,090
That's when he looked around and he said,

436
00:22:42,173 --> 00:22:45,134
"Maybe basketball coaching
isn't for me after all.

437
00:22:45,218 --> 00:22:46,886
I've gotta switch careers."

438
00:22:46,969 --> 00:22:51,599
And he noticed this new industry
of independent college advisors,

439
00:22:51,682 --> 00:22:54,185
and he became the first one in Sacramento.

440
00:22:55,853 --> 00:23:00,483
It's interesting how his background,
in a way, prepared him for this scandal.

441
00:23:00,566 --> 00:23:03,694
If you think about it,
as a basketball coach in college,

442
00:23:03,778 --> 00:23:07,490
he had firsthand exposure
to how athletic admissions worked,

443
00:23:07,573 --> 00:23:11,452
and that was knowledge
that undoubtedly he put to use years later

444
00:23:11,536 --> 00:23:16,124
in his efforts to bribe coaches to portray
kids falsely as recruited athletes.

445
00:23:16,207 --> 00:23:18,876
He knew
athletic admissions from the inside.

446
00:23:19,377 --> 00:23:21,003
[Singer] Hey, John. How are ya?

447
00:23:21,087 --> 00:23:22,922
Hey, Rick. I'm okay.

448
00:23:23,005 --> 00:23:25,591
I'm here
in a big rainstorm in Saudi Arabia.

449
00:23:25,675 --> 00:23:27,677
-[Singer] Saudi Arabia?
-[Wilson] Yeah, I'm in Dubai.

450
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:30,638
[Singer] I didn't know they had
storms like that out there.

451
00:23:30,721 --> 00:23:33,349
[Wilson] Yeah, I know. Very unusual.
What's happening?

452
00:23:33,433 --> 00:23:37,270
So I just gave the Stanford sailing coach
$160,000 for his program.

453
00:23:37,353 --> 00:23:39,689
While we were
having that conversation, I said,

454
00:23:39,772 --> 00:23:42,483
"Hey, I'm hoping that this
160 I'm helping you with

455
00:23:42,567 --> 00:23:44,318
helps secure a spot for next year."

456
00:23:44,402 --> 00:23:47,989
"Can I be guaranteed
a spot for next year?" And he said yes.

457
00:23:48,072 --> 00:23:49,949
-All it takes?
-No.

458
00:23:50,032 --> 00:23:52,577
-No, that's not all it takes.
-[scoffs] Yeah, okay.

459
00:23:52,660 --> 00:23:55,913
This is not TJ Maxx
or Marshalls or something like that.

460
00:23:55,997 --> 00:23:58,499
-Right.
-So I want you to have first dibs.

461
00:23:58,583 --> 00:24:01,169
If you want, I can provide
John Vandemoer with a check.

462
00:24:01,252 --> 00:24:05,465
I can send him your $500,000
to secure a spot for one of your girls.

463
00:24:06,799 --> 00:24:10,761
John Vandemoer, he was
kind of lured out to Stanford.

464
00:24:10,845 --> 00:24:14,807
He was a successful
sailing coach on the East Coast.

465
00:24:14,891 --> 00:24:16,184
My name is John Vandemoer.

466
00:24:16,267 --> 00:24:20,104
I am the head coach
of the Stanford University sailing team…

467
00:24:20,188 --> 00:24:23,691
By all accounts,
he seemed like a good, upstanding guy.

468
00:24:23,774 --> 00:24:26,694
There were a lot of people
that were surprised, who knew him,

469
00:24:26,777 --> 00:24:29,030
that he got caught up in this.

470
00:24:29,906 --> 00:24:31,657
[man 1] SF1, take eight, soft sticks.

471
00:24:33,493 --> 00:24:34,785
[man 2] Audio good?

472
00:24:34,869 --> 00:24:37,455
[man 3] Almost clear. All clear.
Thank you.

473
00:24:37,538 --> 00:24:38,456
[man 2] Okay.

474
00:24:39,290 --> 00:24:42,001
Did you ever
imagine yourself in this situation

475
00:24:42,084 --> 00:24:43,753
before any of this happened?

476
00:24:43,836 --> 00:24:48,049
Never. It's a lot. It's something
I don't think I've fully comprehended yet.

477
00:24:48,132 --> 00:24:49,300
Um…

478
00:24:49,383 --> 00:24:52,303
But it's something
that'll impact the rest of my life.

479
00:24:56,098 --> 00:24:59,143
I first got connected
with Rick Singer through a phone call.

480
00:24:59,227 --> 00:25:00,728
He called me one day,

481
00:25:00,811 --> 00:25:03,898
he introduced himself,
said he was a college recruiter,

482
00:25:03,981 --> 00:25:06,609
and was interested in doing more
with smaller sports.

483
00:25:07,443 --> 00:25:11,239
So I thought it was intriguing and agreed
to meet with him the next morning.

484
00:25:11,322 --> 00:25:15,284
What I thought was interesting is that
I was expecting him to text me or call me

485
00:25:15,368 --> 00:25:16,786
when he got to Stanford.

486
00:25:16,869 --> 00:25:19,038
Because Stanford has… It's very secure.

487
00:25:19,121 --> 00:25:22,708
You have to have a keycard to kind of
swipe in and out of every door.

488
00:25:22,792 --> 00:25:25,002
And somehow he just showed up at my door.

489
00:25:25,086 --> 00:25:27,505
I was shocked by that,
but it definitely told me

490
00:25:27,588 --> 00:25:30,633
he had connections with Stanford
that were deeper than myself.

491
00:25:31,634 --> 00:25:36,180
Rick Singer is kind of your
California beach bum, in a way.

492
00:25:36,264 --> 00:25:38,432
Flip-flops, T-shirt, shorts.

493
00:25:38,516 --> 00:25:42,687
He was actually really easy to talk to.
I had really good conversations with him.

494
00:25:42,770 --> 00:25:45,815
He was really engaging and drawing me in.

495
00:25:45,898 --> 00:25:48,985
Our interaction
was solely about recruiting.

496
00:25:49,068 --> 00:25:51,404
The way recruiting works at Stanford is

497
00:25:51,487 --> 00:25:55,658
each sport is given a certain amount
of spots that you can support.

498
00:25:55,741 --> 00:26:00,621
He kinda ended with him talking about
this young woman named Molly Zhao.

499
00:26:00,705 --> 00:26:06,168
Hello, everyone. I am, um, 17 now.
I've just graduated from high school.

500
00:26:06,252 --> 00:26:09,213
[Vandemoer] Rick said that
she really wanted to go to Stanford.

501
00:26:09,297 --> 00:26:11,424
My recruiting was pretty much
done at that point.

502
00:26:11,507 --> 00:26:15,761
So I wasn't considering her for a spot
I could support, and I had told Rick that.

503
00:26:15,845 --> 00:26:18,931
He contacted me
almost right away and was like,

504
00:26:19,015 --> 00:26:21,183
"Is there any other way
you could support?"

505
00:26:21,267 --> 00:26:22,727
"Her family is pretty wealthy."

506
00:26:22,810 --> 00:26:25,896
"They'd be interested
in donating about a million dollars."

507
00:26:25,980 --> 00:26:29,775
My athletic director said that
it's something Stanford could do,

508
00:26:29,859 --> 00:26:34,655
but that a million dollars wasn't enough
to really have an impact with admissions.

509
00:26:34,739 --> 00:26:38,743
So that was it. And I didn't hear
anything from Rick for a while.

510
00:26:39,493 --> 00:26:41,704
In August of that next year,

511
00:26:41,787 --> 00:26:46,125
Rick called me up out of the blue
and said, "Hey, this is fantastic."

512
00:26:46,208 --> 00:26:49,253
"Molly got in, the family's so excited.
Thanks for all you did."

513
00:26:49,337 --> 00:26:51,213
I said, "Great. I'm excited for her."

514
00:26:51,297 --> 00:26:55,343
"It's a big deal to get into Stanford.
But I didn't really do anything."

515
00:26:55,426 --> 00:27:00,514
He said, "Well, they're really excited and
wanna donate $500,000 to your program."

516
00:27:00,598 --> 00:27:05,061
I said, "If they wanna donate $500,000 to
the sailing program for me doing nothing,

517
00:27:05,144 --> 00:27:07,021
that sounds great to me."

518
00:27:07,563 --> 00:27:12,234
I see no evidence that John did do
anything to get Molly Zhao into Stanford.

519
00:27:12,985 --> 00:27:17,740
Why did Rick Singer donate
$500,000 in the name of Molly Zhao?

520
00:27:17,823 --> 00:27:19,909
Only Rick knows the answer to that.

521
00:27:19,992 --> 00:27:22,370
It may have been a huge down payment

522
00:27:22,453 --> 00:27:24,705
for access
to the Stanford sailing program.

523
00:27:25,289 --> 00:27:28,459
[Vandemoer] He sent the check. I got it
in the mail at my campus mailbox,

524
00:27:28,542 --> 00:27:32,004
and I went in to Development
and told my athletic director

525
00:27:32,088 --> 00:27:34,382
I'd gotten this $500,000 donation.

526
00:27:34,465 --> 00:27:36,759
She was excited for me.
We talked about how

527
00:27:36,842 --> 00:27:39,428
I hadn't done anything for it,
it was out of the blue.

528
00:27:39,512 --> 00:27:42,306
But, you know, I guess
that's the best kind of donation.

529
00:27:42,890 --> 00:27:46,811
At the same time, the head athletic
director for Stanford was there, as well,

530
00:27:46,894 --> 00:27:49,397
and said congratulations,
was excited about it.

531
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,441
I started to explain,
"Hey, it's through this guy, Rick Singer."

532
00:27:52,525 --> 00:27:55,778
He turned to me, interrupted me
and said, "Oh, I know Rick."

533
00:27:57,697 --> 00:28:01,742
[Billy Witz] I think what we see here
is school administration officials

534
00:28:01,826 --> 00:28:03,411
want to keep the money coming in.

535
00:28:03,494 --> 00:28:06,247
They don't wanna ask questions
of how it got there.

536
00:28:06,330 --> 00:28:09,583
And I think we definitely
saw this in the case of Stanford.

537
00:28:09,667 --> 00:28:13,963
When you'd have
$100, $200, $500,000 donations

538
00:28:14,046 --> 00:28:16,924
that would come in
for something like sailing,

539
00:28:17,007 --> 00:28:21,178
that that wouldn't raise any red flags
or wouldn't be scrutinized.

540
00:28:22,054 --> 00:28:25,808
It seems as if Singer
targeted sports that were under the radar

541
00:28:25,891 --> 00:28:28,644
because the margins are tighter.

542
00:28:28,728 --> 00:28:31,063
He knew the right places to look.

543
00:28:36,527 --> 00:28:39,405
So I've got two kids
at Stanford and two kids at Yale.

544
00:28:39,488 --> 00:28:41,699
I'm trying to find out
who's stepping up first.

545
00:28:41,782 --> 00:28:42,950
[Rudy Meredith] Okay.

546
00:28:43,033 --> 00:28:45,745
Don't matter. 'Cause
I might have a spot for both of 'em.

547
00:28:45,828 --> 00:28:47,246
-Really?
-Maybe.

548
00:28:47,329 --> 00:28:53,085
[reporter] Yale soccer coach Rudy Meredith
pocketing more than $860,000 in bribes.

549
00:28:53,169 --> 00:28:56,756
[Meredith] You can come in an Ivy League
environment and develop as a player

550
00:28:56,839 --> 00:28:58,924
and still have your Yale degree.

551
00:28:59,008 --> 00:29:00,843
Give me… Give me the names.

552
00:29:00,926 --> 00:29:02,052
I'm working on it.

553
00:29:02,136 --> 00:29:05,014
I got a new athletic director
is what I'm trying to tell you.

554
00:29:05,097 --> 00:29:06,432
I'm trying to work it.

555
00:29:06,515 --> 00:29:08,559
Hold on one sec. Let me just, uh…

556
00:29:09,602 --> 00:29:13,105
You know, I have no idea
where the hell I am here in London.

557
00:29:13,189 --> 00:29:14,565
Mm-hmm. No problem.

558
00:29:14,648 --> 00:29:17,985
Frickin' hate these
one-way street bullshit things.

559
00:29:18,068 --> 00:29:21,197
I know. And you're on the left side
of the road. Be careful.

560
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,034
Yeah, tell me about it.
Now I'm, uh, at two-three.

561
00:29:25,117 --> 00:29:26,702
Where's four-five?

562
00:29:27,620 --> 00:29:29,079
Where the fuck is it?

563
00:29:29,789 --> 00:29:31,791
Now I'm on the main street again.

564
00:29:31,874 --> 00:29:34,418
I tell you what,
I'm glad I live in the US.

565
00:29:34,502 --> 00:29:36,962
[Meredith laughs] It wouldn't be bad
if you were in Sweden.

566
00:29:37,046 --> 00:29:40,174
[Singer] Then I gotta
find myself a good Swedish girl, then.

567
00:29:40,257 --> 00:29:43,552
[Meredith] All right. Next time
I'm in Sweden, I'll take a look.

568
00:29:43,636 --> 00:29:46,430
Tell me what you're looking for,
I'll see what I can do.

569
00:29:46,514 --> 00:29:49,183
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this much.

570
00:29:49,850 --> 00:29:52,394
At my age,
it's hard to find the right people.

571
00:29:53,270 --> 00:29:54,772
That's the hardest thing.

572
00:29:59,151 --> 00:30:04,490
[Patricia Logan] I met Rick through
my very first time on a dating site.

573
00:30:04,573 --> 00:30:08,118
I'd never been
on a dating site before in my life.

574
00:30:08,661 --> 00:30:11,705
And, at 53 years old
at the time, I figured,

575
00:30:11,789 --> 00:30:14,208
"All right. It's… Let me give it a try."

576
00:30:14,875 --> 00:30:17,837
There he was, and there I was,
and he messaged me, and…

577
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:19,880
[clicks tongue] it went from there.

578
00:30:20,548 --> 00:30:24,343
When I met him, did I look him up online?
Of course. Right away.

579
00:30:24,426 --> 00:30:26,679
And I thought, "Wow, this guy is…"

580
00:30:26,762 --> 00:30:29,890
Other than
the poor video quality on his website,

581
00:30:29,974 --> 00:30:33,018
I thought,
"This is very interesting, what he does."

582
00:30:33,102 --> 00:30:37,106
My key method unlocks
the full potential of your son or daughter

583
00:30:37,189 --> 00:30:39,817
and sets them
on a course to excel in life.

584
00:30:39,900 --> 00:30:41,777
I thought, "He's really a go-getter."

585
00:30:41,861 --> 00:30:44,488
"He's really out there
doing something good."

586
00:30:46,740 --> 00:30:49,201
I met him out for dinner.
It was interesting,

587
00:30:49,285 --> 00:30:52,538
when we first started
comparing notes about our pasts,

588
00:30:52,621 --> 00:30:57,251
and we both
started working the very same time.

589
00:30:57,334 --> 00:31:00,546
He was 12 and I was 12. [chuckles]

590
00:31:00,629 --> 00:31:01,881
I had a paper route,

591
00:31:01,964 --> 00:31:06,802
and he was the kid
that got the older kids to buy alcohol,

592
00:31:06,886 --> 00:31:10,890
sell to him,
he'd sell it then for a profit to kids.

593
00:31:10,973 --> 00:31:12,892
So I said, "Okay, I had a paper route,

594
00:31:12,975 --> 00:31:15,686
you're a minor
selling booze to minors. Great."

595
00:31:15,769 --> 00:31:18,272
He goes, "Yeah,
I was very industrious." [chuckles]

596
00:31:18,355 --> 00:31:20,983
So we laughed about that.
And he was charismatic.

597
00:31:21,066 --> 00:31:23,569
He was… interesting.

598
00:31:23,652 --> 00:31:25,237
He was smart.

599
00:31:25,321 --> 00:31:28,741
It was quick. It was like,
"Nice to meet you. Great. Good night.

600
00:31:28,824 --> 00:31:33,537
I really like you. When I find time,
let's go out again." [laughs]

601
00:31:33,621 --> 00:31:35,998
-[man] Was he pretty serious?
-Oh, super serious.

602
00:31:36,081 --> 00:31:40,002
One time I sent him an emoji,
the Bitmoji, I said, "Hi."

603
00:31:40,336 --> 00:31:44,298
And he came back with, "You're crazy.
Stay cool in school."

604
00:31:44,381 --> 00:31:45,341
Little goofy.

605
00:31:45,925 --> 00:31:48,969
His own family said,
you know, I made him laugh.

606
00:31:49,053 --> 00:31:51,221
[laughs] He needed to laugh more.

607
00:31:51,305 --> 00:31:52,890
He was not, uh…

608
00:31:54,892 --> 00:31:56,644
wanting to stick around long.

609
00:31:57,311 --> 00:32:01,607
He was just so very busy
with college coaching, house to house.

610
00:32:02,858 --> 00:32:05,027
[Golden] Another characteristic
of Singer's

611
00:32:05,110 --> 00:32:07,279
was that, you know, he worked nonstop.

612
00:32:07,363 --> 00:32:10,074
From what his former assistants told me,

613
00:32:10,157 --> 00:32:12,242
he wouldn't spend the night at a hotel.

614
00:32:12,326 --> 00:32:14,119
He'd spend it on an airplane.

615
00:32:14,203 --> 00:32:18,707
And he would be, you know, texting
his assistants at all hours of the day,

616
00:32:18,791 --> 00:32:20,542
giving them various tasks.

617
00:32:20,626 --> 00:32:23,379
He was an extremely driven guy.

618
00:32:23,462 --> 00:32:26,757
[Logan] I got the sense
he had clients all over the place.

619
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,511
I look back on text messages,
and every time we connect, he says,

620
00:32:30,594 --> 00:32:35,265
"I'm in Dallas. I'm in Fort Lauderdale.
I'm in New York. Back to California."

621
00:32:35,349 --> 00:32:38,686
He even lived out of a van
at times when he was coaching.

622
00:32:38,769 --> 00:32:40,938
He had this big Mercedes-type van thing.

623
00:32:41,021 --> 00:32:43,565
He'd sleep in it
'cause it was just easier.

624
00:32:43,649 --> 00:32:44,900
[alarm beeping]

625
00:32:45,734 --> 00:32:49,780
[Logan] Rick had a passion for just
getting up every morning, 4:00 a.m.,

626
00:32:50,364 --> 00:32:53,826
working out, swimming, cycling, running.

627
00:32:53,909 --> 00:32:55,953
That man was like the Energizer Bunny.

628
00:32:56,036 --> 00:32:59,623
I've never seen anybody
that would just have so much energy

629
00:32:59,707 --> 00:33:00,916
and go, go, go.

630
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:05,629
I think he lived on about three hours
of sleep a night, from my understanding.

631
00:33:05,713 --> 00:33:07,131
And that was fine with him.

632
00:33:08,465 --> 00:33:11,635
I looked at
a lot of his behaviors and realized,

633
00:33:12,219 --> 00:33:14,221
you know, he was hiding a lot.

634
00:33:14,888 --> 00:33:18,851
He had been leading
and living this secret life.

635
00:33:18,934 --> 00:33:21,645
No wonder why
he couldn't get close to people.

636
00:33:23,939 --> 00:33:25,733
-[Huneeus] Hey, Rick?
-[Singer] Hey there.

637
00:33:25,816 --> 00:33:28,068
-Is this a good time?
-Yeah. It's good for me.

638
00:33:28,152 --> 00:33:28,986
Okay, great.

639
00:33:30,529 --> 00:33:32,197
My name is Agustin Huneeus.

640
00:33:32,281 --> 00:33:34,116
We're sitting in one of the pavilions,

641
00:33:34,199 --> 00:33:37,286
enjoying a beautiful afternoon
at Quintessa in Napa.

642
00:33:37,369 --> 00:33:40,164
And so let's go and taste.

643
00:33:40,247 --> 00:33:44,293
Just walk me through the whole kind of
water polo thing again and how it works.

644
00:33:44,376 --> 00:33:48,422
You and I talked about the economics,
timing and how all that works.

645
00:33:48,505 --> 00:33:52,426
You and I had a brief conversation
about it, but I want to get it straight.

646
00:33:52,509 --> 00:33:54,178
Okay. Okay.

647
00:33:54,261 --> 00:33:56,930
I'm putting together
your daughter's sports profile now.

648
00:33:57,014 --> 00:33:59,224
It'll be a water polo profile now.

649
00:33:59,308 --> 00:34:01,685
I take her transcript,
test scores and profile

650
00:34:01,769 --> 00:34:04,063
to the liaison for all sports at USC.

651
00:34:04,146 --> 00:34:06,648
Football… Everybody has to go through her.

652
00:34:09,276 --> 00:34:13,363
[Heinel] My name's Donna Heinel, and I am
a senior associate athletic director.

653
00:34:13,447 --> 00:34:14,323
I have the…

654
00:34:14,406 --> 00:34:18,911
[Witz] By all accounts, Donna Heinel
was a very diligent supervisor

655
00:34:18,994 --> 00:34:22,289
who was really a stickler for details.

656
00:34:22,372 --> 00:34:24,625
She was also getting
20 grand a month from Singer.

657
00:34:25,209 --> 00:34:28,545
And then she…
They have meetings every other Thursday,

658
00:34:28,629 --> 00:34:30,547
which are called subcommittee meetings,

659
00:34:30,631 --> 00:34:35,010
where the dean of admissions and two
admissions staff go through the athletes.

660
00:34:35,094 --> 00:34:38,013
It could be water polo
this week, football next week.

661
00:34:38,097 --> 00:34:39,348
It could be basketball.

662
00:34:39,431 --> 00:34:43,018
It depends on where they are
in the seasons and what's going on.

663
00:34:43,102 --> 00:34:44,978
Heinel became the gatekeeper

664
00:34:45,062 --> 00:34:48,941
between the admissions department
and the athletic department.

665
00:34:49,024 --> 00:34:54,154
Because the idea was for the students
to be treated as recruited athletes,

666
00:34:54,238 --> 00:34:56,740
that's virtually a guarantee of admission.

667
00:34:56,824 --> 00:35:01,203
Some of the fake athletes at USC,
it seems like it would be hard to miss.

668
00:35:01,286 --> 00:35:04,289
I mean, there was
a 5'5" men's basketball player.

669
00:35:04,373 --> 00:35:08,418
A high school cheerleader
was made to look like a lacrosse player.

670
00:35:08,502 --> 00:35:12,131
There was a water polo player
who didn't play water polo in high school.

671
00:35:12,214 --> 00:35:15,926
It's pretty remarkable that
none of these things raised a red flag.

672
00:35:16,009 --> 00:35:18,554
And on the rare occasion when they did,

673
00:35:18,637 --> 00:35:22,599
Heinel was there to smooth them over
with the admissions department.

674
00:35:22,683 --> 00:35:26,937
[Singer] Your daughter will get presented,
and if the committee says,"She's in,"

675
00:35:27,020 --> 00:35:30,691
then what happens is
Donna tells me she's in, we're good.

676
00:35:30,774 --> 00:35:33,610
Essentially, she's been admitted
before she even applied.

677
00:35:33,694 --> 00:35:37,364
At that point, you will send
your $200,000 check to our foundation.

678
00:35:37,447 --> 00:35:42,536
Then Jovan will call me and say, "Okay,
this is how I want the money split."

679
00:35:42,619 --> 00:35:45,497
You understand my daughter's
not worthy to be on that team.

680
00:35:45,581 --> 00:35:47,332
No, no, he's my guy,

681
00:35:47,416 --> 00:35:50,502
and he knows she's not
coming to play. He knows all that.

682
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,549
There were four USC employees
that were involved with Rick Singer.

683
00:35:55,632 --> 00:35:59,344
One of them was Jovan Vavic,
the water polo coach.

684
00:35:59,428 --> 00:36:04,391
Vavic is by far the most successful
coach in college water polo.

685
00:36:04,474 --> 00:36:09,188
Vavic has been charged by authorities
of accepting more than $250,000

686
00:36:09,271 --> 00:36:14,818
in exchange for helping two students
get into USC as water polo players.

687
00:36:23,535 --> 00:36:27,039
[Singer] Donna Heinel essentially puts
them on the recruited walk-on list,

688
00:36:27,122 --> 00:36:28,457
which happens all the time.

689
00:36:28,540 --> 00:36:32,294
And they just don't show up
for practice, and that's fine.

690
00:36:32,377 --> 00:36:34,880
One of the things Singer took advantage of

691
00:36:34,963 --> 00:36:38,508
was the fact that athletic departments
and admissions offices

692
00:36:38,592 --> 00:36:40,260
both take a coach's word

693
00:36:40,344 --> 00:36:43,472
for the athletic caliber
of the person they're recruiting.

694
00:36:43,555 --> 00:36:46,683
Is there any risk
that this thing blows up in my face?

695
00:36:46,767 --> 00:36:48,727
[Singer] It hasn't in 24 years.

696
00:36:48,810 --> 00:36:51,730
No, I know all that, but the environment…

697
00:36:51,813 --> 00:36:53,482
Like, some article comes out

698
00:36:53,565 --> 00:36:57,444
that the polo team is selling seats
into the school for 250 grand.

699
00:36:57,527 --> 00:37:00,489
Well, no,
because she's a water polo player.

700
00:37:01,573 --> 00:37:02,824
But she's not.

701
00:37:04,534 --> 00:37:05,994
[Chloe] I'm so scared.

702
00:37:06,662 --> 00:37:09,831
[woman] Check it. No matter what happens,
you're gonna be fine.

703
00:37:09,915 --> 00:37:13,043
-[man] You have to face it.
-[woman] You have to face it. Yeah.

704
00:37:13,126 --> 00:37:16,296
-You're gonna be fine. I promise.
-I got deferred.

705
00:37:17,089 --> 00:37:18,215
[woman] You got deferred?

706
00:37:18,298 --> 00:37:19,424
[sobs]

707
00:37:20,259 --> 00:37:22,594
There's an update
in your application portal,

708
00:37:22,678 --> 00:37:25,138
you click on it,
and then that letter pops up.

709
00:37:25,222 --> 00:37:29,351
"We appreciate your passion for
our school. We're sorry to inform you…"

710
00:37:29,434 --> 00:37:32,437
"…we are unable to
offer you admission to Stanford."

711
00:37:35,565 --> 00:37:36,775
[sobbing]

712
00:37:38,402 --> 00:37:42,531
I'm not getting into San Diego or UCLA.

713
00:37:42,614 --> 00:37:44,408
Just makes me feel like shit.

714
00:37:44,950 --> 00:37:48,578
I literally started bawling.
Like, it just angered me.

715
00:37:48,662 --> 00:37:52,666
There were a lot of tears,
punching the wall, cursing.

716
00:37:52,749 --> 00:37:55,877
I didn't leave my room.
I was crying the entire weekend.

717
00:37:55,961 --> 00:37:57,629
I got rejected.

718
00:38:01,925 --> 00:38:05,304
[Priscilla Sands] I have seen a change,
and I have seen a progression.

719
00:38:05,387 --> 00:38:10,309
And I do think that students
are more obsessed with college.

720
00:38:10,392 --> 00:38:14,688
I'd say most kids are getting plagued
by this anxiety, and you can feel it.

721
00:38:14,771 --> 00:38:17,024
They're freaking out
when you meet with them.

722
00:38:17,107 --> 00:38:20,110
They're like, "What if this happens?"
"What about that?"

723
00:38:20,193 --> 00:38:23,447
"Will they not like me
because I wrote this one word?"

724
00:38:23,530 --> 00:38:26,325
It's like they're losing their minds
because of it.

725
00:38:26,408 --> 00:38:30,203
Basically, I got rejected by
almost all of the colleges I applied to.

726
00:38:30,287 --> 00:38:34,041
It's awful because
you think something's wrong with yourself.

727
00:38:34,124 --> 00:38:37,627
When we have children and they apply
to colleges, where will they go?

728
00:38:37,711 --> 00:38:39,838
No one's getting into colleges
at that point.

729
00:38:39,921 --> 00:38:43,717
It's crazy. Like, USC's acceptance rate
just went down three more percent.

730
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,136
It's at 12% now, which is like…

731
00:38:46,219 --> 00:38:49,264
Most students who wanna go
to college could find a college.

732
00:38:49,348 --> 00:38:51,516
The problem is

733
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:55,270
far too many students
want to go to the same colleges.

734
00:38:55,854 --> 00:38:58,774
My goals were Ivy League.
I wanted to get in that.

735
00:38:58,857 --> 00:39:02,027
And when I didn't get in,
I was… just broken.

736
00:39:02,110 --> 00:39:05,947
I took AP bio. I'm taking
AP environmental science this year. I…

737
00:39:06,031 --> 00:39:08,325
I'm not interested in it at all.

738
00:39:08,408 --> 00:39:11,953
Just to have this
extra leverage that doesn't even help.

739
00:39:12,537 --> 00:39:15,332
[Barbara Kalmus] This is going on
in high schools across the country.

740
00:39:15,415 --> 00:39:17,376
How many advanced classes can you take?

741
00:39:17,459 --> 00:39:20,420
You drop orchestra
because if you don't do orchestra,

742
00:39:20,504 --> 00:39:22,255
you can take another science class.

743
00:39:22,339 --> 00:39:24,674
There's so much pressure on these kids.

744
00:39:24,758 --> 00:39:28,261
Because if a school offers
15 APs and you've only taken one,

745
00:39:28,345 --> 00:39:31,056
you can cross off
the top 50 schools in the country.

746
00:39:31,139 --> 00:39:35,435
You have people who just
go home and all they do is homework.

747
00:39:35,519 --> 00:39:39,314
I hate seeing
how it consumes people's lives.

748
00:39:39,398 --> 00:39:42,192
I think social media
is a contributing factor,

749
00:39:42,275 --> 00:39:46,780
because as soon as
a student anywhere has an acceptance,

750
00:39:46,863 --> 00:39:49,116
it goes onto social media,

751
00:39:49,199 --> 00:39:53,370
so it's just another time
to sort of feel a punch in the gut.

752
00:39:53,453 --> 00:39:56,540
It's just really shitty to feel like this.

753
00:39:56,623 --> 00:40:00,043
And I know that people
that got in are super deserving.

754
00:40:02,170 --> 00:40:06,508
I like to curl my fake lash
with my real lashes.

755
00:40:07,092 --> 00:40:11,012
[Fry] Olivia Jade is an extremely
successful YouTube influencer.

756
00:40:11,096 --> 00:40:14,975
She had millions of followers
watch these videos where she would,

757
00:40:15,058 --> 00:40:18,895
you know, get up, brush her teeth,
do her morning makeup routine,

758
00:40:18,979 --> 00:40:20,730
pick out outfits.

759
00:40:20,814 --> 00:40:22,816
So it's this very diary-like thing,

760
00:40:22,899 --> 00:40:26,486
but with the added benefit
of branding opportunities.

761
00:40:26,570 --> 00:40:29,739
I created my own collection
with Princess Polly.

762
00:40:29,823 --> 00:40:31,741
I get to reveal and announce

763
00:40:31,825 --> 00:40:35,620
my highlight palette
with Sephora Collection.

764
00:40:37,873 --> 00:40:41,042
[Fry] She's the child
of the actress Lori Loughlin

765
00:40:41,126 --> 00:40:44,546
and the fashion designer
Mossimo Giannulli.

766
00:40:44,629 --> 00:40:49,134
They supposedly had both of
their daughters, Olivia Jade and Bella,

767
00:40:49,217 --> 00:40:52,929
pose on a rowing machine,
and sent these pictures to Rick Singer

768
00:40:53,013 --> 00:40:57,100
and had them accepted
into USC as coxswains.

769
00:40:57,184 --> 00:41:01,104
I went to high school with Olivia Jade.
I know the school she was at.

770
00:41:01,188 --> 00:41:06,151
I saw a picture of Olivia Jade's sister
on the wall with the seniors,

771
00:41:06,234 --> 00:41:09,863
and it was like,
"Congratulations for getting into USC."

772
00:41:09,946 --> 00:41:14,826
And then I remember hearing later
that Olivia had also gotten into USC.

773
00:41:14,910 --> 00:41:18,455
I was like, "Whoa."
'Cause USC is extremely hard to get into.

774
00:41:18,538 --> 00:41:21,208
So not only one sister, but both of them.

775
00:41:22,125 --> 00:41:23,293
Off to school.

776
00:41:23,376 --> 00:41:25,170
[Loughlin] Bye, Olivia. Have a lovely day.

777
00:41:25,253 --> 00:41:28,340
-I know you're so excited.
-I won't. I will not.

778
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:32,636
Whatever.

779
00:41:34,638 --> 00:41:36,348
[Naomi Fry] There's an Olivia Jade video

780
00:41:36,431 --> 00:41:39,768
where it's the first day
of her senior year of high school,

781
00:41:39,851 --> 00:41:42,062
and she's pretty miserable.

782
00:41:42,145 --> 00:41:44,064
I've gone to one class, and I wanna die.

783
00:41:44,147 --> 00:41:46,441
It's so hot in every single room.

784
00:41:46,525 --> 00:41:48,610
I just wanna go home.

785
00:41:48,693 --> 00:41:52,030
Then she returns home
and she says, "I've never been so happy."

786
00:41:52,113 --> 00:41:55,450
I've never been so happy
to be anywhere in my whole entire life.

787
00:41:55,534 --> 00:42:00,580
Then there's also a nod to a kind of,
like, you know, #blessed.

788
00:42:00,664 --> 00:42:02,958
Remember how lucky
we are to have an education

789
00:42:03,041 --> 00:42:05,794
and how many people
would kill to have a good education.

790
00:42:05,877 --> 00:42:09,714
Or an education at all.
So, as much as I hate it…

791
00:42:11,258 --> 00:42:14,844
I still hate it, but I'm grateful
that I get to be educated.

792
00:42:14,928 --> 00:42:16,263
Even though I hate it.

793
00:42:16,346 --> 00:42:20,016
Olivia Jade had said that
she wanted to drop out of high school,

794
00:42:20,100 --> 00:42:21,893
in fact, when she was a senior.

795
00:42:21,977 --> 00:42:26,314
I told my mom I wanted to quit school.
She was like, "That's not happening."

796
00:42:26,398 --> 00:42:30,026
She made me stick it out,
and then my dad made me go to college.

797
00:42:30,110 --> 00:42:34,406
Mostly my parents really wanted me to go,
because both of them didn't go to college…

798
00:42:34,489 --> 00:42:36,324
-They did all right.
-[Olivia] They did fine.

799
00:42:36,408 --> 00:42:37,659
-They did fine.
-[Olivia] Yeah.

800
00:42:37,742 --> 00:42:39,369
-[man] They are--
-Hypocrites.

801
00:42:40,161 --> 00:42:42,872
[Fry] It never seemed
like she was very interested

802
00:42:42,956 --> 00:42:44,457
in what college could give her.

803
00:42:44,541 --> 00:42:47,627
Why should she be? She was
very successful in what she was doing.

804
00:42:48,336 --> 00:42:50,046
Things were going great for her.

805
00:42:53,967 --> 00:42:55,885
[Fry] In November of 2017,

806
00:42:55,969 --> 00:43:00,432
Donna Heinel presented Olivia Jade's
athletic profile to the USC subcommittee,

807
00:43:00,515 --> 00:43:03,602
and they approved her admission
to the university conditionally.

808
00:43:05,478 --> 00:43:06,896
Less than two weeks later,

809
00:43:06,980 --> 00:43:10,483
Rick Singer wrote an email
confirming to Olivia's parents

810
00:43:10,567 --> 00:43:12,944
that she was going to be accepted at USC

811
00:43:13,028 --> 00:43:15,405
and told them
to keep it hush-hush until March.

812
00:43:19,659 --> 00:43:23,747
The guidance counselor at Olivia Jade's
high school became suspicious

813
00:43:23,830 --> 00:43:27,834
because he didn't believe either
of the sisters participated in crew.

814
00:43:28,585 --> 00:43:31,671
According to the government,
Olivia Jade and her parents

815
00:43:31,755 --> 00:43:34,132
discussed how to avoid the possibility

816
00:43:34,633 --> 00:43:38,219
of the high school counselor
disrupting their admissions scheme.

817
00:43:38,303 --> 00:43:42,182
Olivia Jade asked whether she should
list USC as her top choice school

818
00:43:42,265 --> 00:43:46,102
and Lori replied, "Yes, but it might be
a flag for the weasel to meddle."

819
00:43:46,186 --> 00:43:48,229
Presumably referring to the counselor.

820
00:43:48,313 --> 00:43:53,652
And Mossimo added to that, "Fuck him,"
and said that he was a "nosy bastard."

821
00:43:55,445 --> 00:43:58,823
Things began to unravel
when Olivia Jade's counselor

822
00:43:58,907 --> 00:44:01,701
had a phone call
with a USC admissions official.

823
00:44:02,494 --> 00:44:05,246
[man] Conducted routine
counselor call with USC

824
00:44:05,330 --> 00:44:08,249
to check up
on the dozens of applicants that year.

825
00:44:08,333 --> 00:44:09,793
When we got to Olivia,

826
00:44:09,876 --> 00:44:13,421
USC said she was flagged
as a recruit for the crew team.

827
00:44:13,505 --> 00:44:17,258
I told them I had no knowledge
of Olivia's involvement in crew.

828
00:44:17,342 --> 00:44:19,969
Based on what I knew
of her video blogging schedule,

829
00:44:20,053 --> 00:44:22,389
I highly doubted
she was involved in the sport.

830
00:44:22,472 --> 00:44:27,018
[Fry] Somehow Mossimo found out
what the counselor had said to USC,

831
00:44:27,102 --> 00:44:29,187
and went to the school to confront him.

832
00:44:30,313 --> 00:44:31,523
[telephone ringing]

833
00:44:31,606 --> 00:44:33,650
[man] I received a call
from the front desk

834
00:44:33,733 --> 00:44:37,278
that Mr. Giannulli was downstairs
and wanted to talk to me.

835
00:44:37,362 --> 00:44:39,656
When we sat down in my office,

836
00:44:39,739 --> 00:44:43,451
he aggressively asked
what I was telling USC about his daughters

837
00:44:43,535 --> 00:44:48,081
and why I was trying to ruin
or get in the way of their opportunities.

838
00:44:48,164 --> 00:44:50,583
His tone made me visibly nervous.

839
00:44:51,584 --> 00:44:55,714
[Fry] Word of the confrontation
got back to Donna Heinel at USC,

840
00:44:55,797 --> 00:44:59,759
and she left a voicemail for Rick Singer
cautioning about the situation.

841
00:45:00,552 --> 00:45:03,847
[Heinel] Yeah, hey, Rick, look,
I just wanna make sure that,

842
00:45:03,930 --> 00:45:07,225
you know, I don't want the…
the parents getting angry

843
00:45:07,308 --> 00:45:10,645
or creating any type
of disturbance at the school, okay?

844
00:45:10,729 --> 00:45:13,523
I just wanna make sure
that those students,

845
00:45:13,606 --> 00:45:16,985
if questioned at the school,
that they respond appropriately,

846
00:45:17,068 --> 00:45:20,071
that they're walk-on candidates
for their respective sports,

847
00:45:20,155 --> 00:45:22,490
that they're looking forward
to trying out for the team

848
00:45:22,574 --> 00:45:24,576
and making the team when they get here.

849
00:45:24,659 --> 00:45:27,120
That's what I just… wanna make sure of.

850
00:45:27,203 --> 00:45:29,622
I don't want anybody
walking into their high school

851
00:45:29,706 --> 00:45:31,583
and, you know, yelling at counselors.

852
00:45:31,666 --> 00:45:33,626
That'll shut everything down.

853
00:45:35,378 --> 00:45:38,089
[Golden] The scandal did surprise me

854
00:45:38,173 --> 00:45:42,051
because it reflected
a kind of blatant illegality.

855
00:45:42,135 --> 00:45:46,264
Bribing college coaches to pretend
that their children were athletes

856
00:45:46,347 --> 00:45:47,724
when in fact they weren't.

857
00:45:47,807 --> 00:45:51,770
Why would a college coach
jeopardize their job and their reputation

858
00:45:51,853 --> 00:45:54,272
to let somebody in for a bribe?

859
00:45:57,901 --> 00:46:00,528
[Vandemoer] Fundraising was
certainly a big part of my job.

860
00:46:00,612 --> 00:46:03,156
Funding going to the football
and basketball programs

861
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:07,535
are pretty extreme compared to
what a smaller sport like sailing gets.

862
00:46:08,161 --> 00:46:10,955
The school isn't making money
by having a sailing program.

863
00:46:11,039 --> 00:46:14,667
It's great they offer it for students,
but that program is in the red.

864
00:46:14,751 --> 00:46:17,378
That money has to be either
made up for in donations

865
00:46:17,462 --> 00:46:21,466
or the school is just writing a check
for salaries, equipment, travel.

866
00:46:22,258 --> 00:46:24,636
[Vandemoer] My dream would be
if my job was just to coach.

867
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:26,805
All told, I was horrible at fundraising.

868
00:46:26,888 --> 00:46:29,015
It's not something I really like to do.

869
00:46:29,098 --> 00:46:30,683
But it was done out of necessity.

870
00:46:31,518 --> 00:46:34,229
It was always
a struggle to kind of survive.

871
00:46:36,064 --> 00:46:40,485
In December 2018, all the head coaches
are gonna meet with the senior staff.

872
00:46:40,568 --> 00:46:42,028
It's a big deal, that meeting.

873
00:46:42,111 --> 00:46:45,490
In 11 years, I'd met the senior
athletic director a handful of times.

874
00:46:45,573 --> 00:46:49,327
I'm in the athletic director's office.
There's, like, six of them there.

875
00:46:49,410 --> 00:46:52,580
We'd just won a national championship
less than a month earlier,

876
00:46:52,664 --> 00:46:55,458
and the athletic director
hadn't even recognized it.

877
00:46:55,542 --> 00:46:58,670
Didn't say congratulations,
didn't reach out to the team, nothing.

878
00:46:58,753 --> 00:47:01,172
Didn't say congratulations
during that meeting.

879
00:47:01,256 --> 00:47:03,508
The only thing
he was doing was watching TV.

880
00:47:03,591 --> 00:47:06,845
He was facing, you know,
four or five screens on a wall

881
00:47:06,928 --> 00:47:08,805
and was watching basketball.

882
00:47:08,888 --> 00:47:12,600
The only time he looks up at me
and starts really asking questions

883
00:47:12,684 --> 00:47:14,435
is when it comes to fundraising.

884
00:47:14,519 --> 00:47:16,938
Like, "You're doing a great job
of fundraising."

885
00:47:17,021 --> 00:47:18,857
"Keep that up. That's really helpful."

886
00:47:18,940 --> 00:47:22,277
Then he goes back to the television.
That's it for the whole meeting.

887
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:24,279
[man] This is someone
that knew Rick Singer.

888
00:47:24,362 --> 00:47:26,906
Yes. Yeah, he told me he did.

889
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,956
Rick really was pushing me hard
to really take a look at this student.

890
00:47:35,039 --> 00:47:38,585
He was really interested and knew
I wanted a second assistant coach,

891
00:47:38,668 --> 00:47:41,796
and I was struggling
to fundraise for that position,

892
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:44,173
and he said, "Hey, through my foundation,

893
00:47:44,257 --> 00:47:48,136
I would like to donate
$110,000 to the program

894
00:47:48,219 --> 00:47:51,806
to get you through
a year or two of funding that position."

895
00:47:51,890 --> 00:47:53,933
He's like, "No strings attached."

896
00:47:54,017 --> 00:47:57,520
"I just wanna continue our relationship
and keep bringing people to you

897
00:47:57,604 --> 00:47:59,230
and have you look at 'em."

898
00:47:59,314 --> 00:48:01,274
I said, "Great. That's fantastic."

899
00:48:01,858 --> 00:48:03,943
[Fisher] I think this was
a slippery slope for John,

900
00:48:04,027 --> 00:48:06,905
and he didn't knowingly wake up and say,

901
00:48:06,988 --> 00:48:11,367
"You know what? Today I'm going to
join this racketeering conspiracy."

902
00:48:11,451 --> 00:48:14,537
But all the government have to prove is
"Did you accept the money

903
00:48:14,621 --> 00:48:18,499
in exchange for something
that the giver of the money wanted

904
00:48:18,583 --> 00:48:20,460
and didn't duly earn, didn't deserve?"

905
00:48:20,543 --> 00:48:24,505
The biggest factor
in the Stanford coach's case

906
00:48:24,589 --> 00:48:26,674
was he didn't personally enrich himself.

907
00:48:27,425 --> 00:48:31,471
The proceeds that he received
furthered the sailing program at Stanford.

908
00:48:32,055 --> 00:48:34,974
Rick Singer was skilled
at leveraging off people.

909
00:48:35,058 --> 00:48:37,518
He had a sixth sense to exploit

910
00:48:37,602 --> 00:48:40,396
and find vulnerabilities
of people he was working with.

911
00:48:41,272 --> 00:48:43,733
From my understanding,
in the Felicity Huffman case,

912
00:48:43,816 --> 00:48:45,026
he told Felicity,

913
00:48:45,109 --> 00:48:48,321
"Your daughter's scores aren't good enough
to get into this school."

914
00:48:48,404 --> 00:48:50,073
Turns out that was made up, false.

915
00:48:50,156 --> 00:48:52,450
The daughter
would've gotten in regardless.

916
00:48:52,533 --> 00:48:54,911
It's identifying those pain points.

917
00:48:54,994 --> 00:48:57,163
Felicity can begin to rationalize.

918
00:48:57,246 --> 00:49:00,625
"Am I a good enough mother?
Have I spent too much time on my career?"

919
00:49:00,708 --> 00:49:03,002
"Don't you want
your daughter in a good school?"

920
00:49:03,086 --> 00:49:05,254
Leveraging off the weakness,
the pain point.

921
00:49:06,381 --> 00:49:10,218
No, his grades
are not good enough to get into SC.

922
00:49:10,301 --> 00:49:12,470
-[McGlashan] Is that right?
-Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

923
00:49:13,221 --> 00:49:14,681
That's amazing.

924
00:49:14,764 --> 00:49:16,849
Wow. Okay.

925
00:49:17,350 --> 00:49:19,686
What would her chances be
without this process?

926
00:49:19,769 --> 00:49:21,270
-[Singer] Zero.
-She won't get in?

927
00:49:21,354 --> 00:49:23,189
Zero. She has no chance.

928
00:49:23,856 --> 00:49:26,776
What he did well,
like what a good marketer does,

929
00:49:26,859 --> 00:49:28,069
he sold the benefits.

930
00:49:28,152 --> 00:49:29,153
It's very simple.

931
00:49:29,237 --> 00:49:31,823
"Would you like
your daughter to go to Harvard?" "Yes."

932
00:49:31,906 --> 00:49:34,951
"Great. If you'd like
your daughter to go to Harvard, do this.

933
00:49:35,034 --> 00:49:37,870
Here's the reality.
Your daughter's not scoring that well,

934
00:49:37,954 --> 00:49:39,747
been mentoring her for two years.

935
00:49:39,831 --> 00:49:42,417
The kid doesn't get it.
If she's not Harvard material,

936
00:49:42,500 --> 00:49:45,795
and you want her to go to Harvard,
we gotta take a different path.

937
00:49:45,878 --> 00:49:48,756
Here's that path.
We'll have someone take the test for you."

938
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:49,966
"What do you mean?"

939
00:49:50,049 --> 00:49:53,302
"This guy, for $15,000,
is gonna take the test."

940
00:49:54,053 --> 00:49:55,513
This is absolutely unheard of.

941
00:49:55,596 --> 00:49:57,974
To make this happen,
I can make scores happen,

942
00:49:58,057 --> 00:50:00,351
and nobody on the planet
can make scores happen.

943
00:50:00,435 --> 00:50:04,063
Your kid won't even know it happened.
It will happen as though…

944
00:50:04,147 --> 00:50:07,608
She will think she's really super smart
and she got lucky on a test,

945
00:50:07,692 --> 00:50:08,985
and you got a score now.

946
00:50:09,068 --> 00:50:11,070
It's the homerun of homeruns.

947
00:50:11,154 --> 00:50:13,114
-And it works?
-[Singer] Every time.

948
00:50:13,197 --> 00:50:14,157
[both chuckle]

949
00:50:14,741 --> 00:50:16,743
What is the… What is the number?

950
00:50:17,493 --> 00:50:20,038
The number on the testing
is $75,000, okay?

951
00:50:20,121 --> 00:50:24,584
It's $75,000 to get any scores
you wanna get on the ACT or SAT.

952
00:50:25,084 --> 00:50:28,296
If you wanna get into
an elite university in America,

953
00:50:28,379 --> 00:50:31,924
on the ACT, which is scored out of 36,

954
00:50:32,008 --> 00:50:35,887
if you're not
really in the 34, 35, 36 range,

955
00:50:35,970 --> 00:50:40,683
or on the SAT if you're not
sort of 1500 and above,

956
00:50:40,767 --> 00:50:43,102
you're probably not in the conversation.

957
00:50:44,896 --> 00:50:47,315
[Reider] For many years,
the SAT was explained

958
00:50:47,398 --> 00:50:50,026
and advertised as being an aptitude test.

959
00:50:50,109 --> 00:50:54,864
A very prominent, predictive feature
of getting a high test score…

960
00:50:55,573 --> 00:50:57,408
is family income.

961
00:50:57,492 --> 00:51:01,287
The college board and the ACT
have admitted this for years.

962
00:51:01,370 --> 00:51:03,790
This is not a secret
that's being divulged.

963
00:51:03,873 --> 00:51:07,210
If I were appointed czar
of American college admissions,

964
00:51:07,293 --> 00:51:09,087
I would abolish standardized testing.

965
00:51:09,670 --> 00:51:13,549
It would mean that all of these
wealthy test prep companies

966
00:51:13,633 --> 00:51:15,927
would have to find something else to do.

967
00:51:16,010 --> 00:51:20,765
Register your son or daughter for
the Princeton Review's 1500+ course.

968
00:51:20,848 --> 00:51:22,391
It's a game-changer.

969
00:51:22,475 --> 00:51:26,020
There's a fair warning around
test preparation. This is a business.

970
00:51:26,104 --> 00:51:28,356
Every claim they make is marketing driven.

971
00:51:28,856 --> 00:51:33,945
We even offer a guaranteed score
improvement of at least 150 points.

972
00:51:34,028 --> 00:51:37,031
So you have people out there
who are making claims like,

973
00:51:37,115 --> 00:51:40,118
"We'll improve your score 500 points."

974
00:51:40,201 --> 00:51:42,161
That's worth $1,000 investment.

975
00:51:42,787 --> 00:51:47,583
But it's only worth $1,000 investment if
you have a disposable $1,000 to invest.

976
00:51:48,501 --> 00:51:49,919
[Reider] All standardized testing

977
00:51:50,002 --> 00:51:54,006
automatically advantages
the people who are already advantaged.

978
00:51:54,090 --> 00:51:57,260
Most affluent people
are accessing people like me,

979
00:51:57,343 --> 00:52:01,764
and 85% of America
just can't access that level of expertise.

980
00:52:01,848 --> 00:52:04,392
A private college counselor's
gonna run you,

981
00:52:04,475 --> 00:52:06,227
on the low, low, low end,

982
00:52:06,310 --> 00:52:10,231
and you're not getting a quality
college counselor, 200, 300 bucks an hour.

983
00:52:10,314 --> 00:52:14,610
On the high end, you're talking
about $500 to over $1,500 an hour

984
00:52:14,694 --> 00:52:18,948
to access these guys and gals,
and it's a lot.

985
00:52:20,741 --> 00:52:21,868
-Hello?
-[woman] Hi, Dad.

986
00:52:21,951 --> 00:52:25,746
[Bello] When you look at it
in light of the scandal,

987
00:52:25,830 --> 00:52:28,040
when you have predominantly rich families

988
00:52:28,124 --> 00:52:32,044
who had every advantage
that said they should be fine on the SAT,

989
00:52:32,128 --> 00:52:34,338
they're gonna score
in the highest demographic,

990
00:52:34,422 --> 00:52:38,718
they had all the prep in the world
that they wanted, and yet they still…

991
00:52:39,302 --> 00:52:40,136
cheated.

992
00:52:40,720 --> 00:52:45,057
Okay, the first thing we need to do,
and I think I mentioned this to your wife,

993
00:52:45,141 --> 00:52:48,102
we need to get your daughter
tested for a learning difference.

994
00:52:48,186 --> 00:52:51,731
Let's say it's my person who does it,
or whoever you wanna do it.

995
00:52:51,814 --> 00:52:56,068
I need that person to get her
100% extended time over multiple days.

996
00:52:57,195 --> 00:53:01,282
[Bello] When you take the SAT
or the ACT, it's a timed test. Right?

997
00:53:01,365 --> 00:53:03,534
There are restrictions
on how it's delivered.

998
00:53:03,618 --> 00:53:08,331
To account for learning disabilities,
often accommodations are provided.

999
00:53:08,915 --> 00:53:11,292
You have to have
certain medical documentation

1000
00:53:11,375 --> 00:53:13,586
of the need for these accommodations.

1001
00:53:13,669 --> 00:53:17,715
And that's one of the avenues
that Rick Singer exploited.

1002
00:53:17,798 --> 00:53:20,927
I also need to tell your daughter,
that when she takes the test,

1003
00:53:21,010 --> 00:53:22,136
to not be as…

1004
00:53:22,428 --> 00:53:23,721
To be stupid.

1005
00:53:23,804 --> 00:53:25,640
To not be as smart as she is.

1006
00:53:25,723 --> 00:53:27,934
The goal is to be slow,

1007
00:53:28,017 --> 00:53:30,853
to not be as bright as she is, all that,

1008
00:53:30,937 --> 00:53:33,231
so that we show discrepancies.

1009
00:53:34,065 --> 00:53:36,817
At the academy,
kids are getting extra time all the time.

1010
00:53:36,901 --> 00:53:38,861
-[Caplan] You mean the Greenwich Academy?
-Yeah.

1011
00:53:38,945 --> 00:53:40,571
Everywhere in the country.

1012
00:53:40,655 --> 00:53:43,783
What happened is,
all the wealthy families figured out,

1013
00:53:43,866 --> 00:53:46,827
"If I get my kid tested
and they get extended time,

1014
00:53:46,911 --> 00:53:48,663
they can do better on the test."

1015
00:53:48,746 --> 00:53:52,250
Most of these kids don't have issues.
But they're getting extra time.

1016
00:53:52,333 --> 00:53:54,168
The playing field's not fair.

1017
00:53:54,252 --> 00:53:55,336
No, it's not.

1018
00:53:56,003 --> 00:53:57,463
I mean, this is… I…

1019
00:53:57,546 --> 00:53:59,632
To be honest,
it feels a little weird, but--

1020
00:53:59,715 --> 00:54:02,009
I know it does. I know it does.

1021
00:54:02,093 --> 00:54:06,472
But when she gets a score and we have
choices, you're gonna be saying,

1022
00:54:06,555 --> 00:54:09,934
"Okay, I'll take all my kids.
We're gonna do the same thing."

1023
00:54:10,017 --> 00:54:13,271
And a score of…
You would think that would be…

1024
00:54:13,354 --> 00:54:15,856
[Singer] The score will be
whatever we want it to be.

1025
00:54:15,940 --> 00:54:19,652
So, again, and keep in mind I am a lawyer,

1026
00:54:19,735 --> 00:54:21,696
so I'm sort of rules-oriented.

1027
00:54:22,446 --> 00:54:26,659
Doing this with you, no way…
She's taking the test. It's…

1028
00:54:26,742 --> 00:54:30,413
It's her taking the test, right?
There's no way any trouble comes of this?

1029
00:54:30,496 --> 00:54:31,622
Nothing like that?

1030
00:54:31,706 --> 00:54:33,207
So, I, uh…

1031
00:54:34,542 --> 00:54:36,377
I explained this to you before.

1032
00:54:36,460 --> 00:54:38,045
[Caplan] I… I know.

1033
00:54:38,129 --> 00:54:41,215
-And I apologize, but it's just--
-[Singer] No. I get you.

1034
00:54:41,299 --> 00:54:42,842
-Bear with me.
-[Singer] Okay.

1035
00:54:43,426 --> 00:54:45,428
I will explain to you the process.

1036
00:54:46,429 --> 00:54:49,598
You're going to fly to LA
and go on a fake recruiting visit.

1037
00:54:50,224 --> 00:54:52,601
You'll visit some schools
while you're out here.

1038
00:54:52,685 --> 00:54:55,938
Then what'll happen is Mark,
who is the proctor, will fly in,

1039
00:54:56,022 --> 00:54:59,025
and he'll show up on Friday night,
just like you guys would.

1040
00:54:59,108 --> 00:55:02,945
On Saturday morning, at eight o'clock,
you guys will show up at the school.

1041
00:55:03,946 --> 00:55:06,490
Your daughter
will go in and take the test.

1042
00:55:06,574 --> 00:55:08,409
Mark will be your proctor.

1043
00:55:08,492 --> 00:55:11,287
She'll be the only one taking it
in the room with Mark.

1044
00:55:11,370 --> 00:55:14,206
What we do with kids
who have learning differences

1045
00:55:14,290 --> 00:55:17,460
is they write their answers
on a separate sheet to the side of it

1046
00:55:17,543 --> 00:55:18,711
so that we can rebubble.

1047
00:55:18,794 --> 00:55:21,172
She'll think that
when she's done with the test,

1048
00:55:21,255 --> 00:55:23,341
she has taken the test. No doubt about it.

1049
00:55:23,424 --> 00:55:25,718
She'll walk out the door
and she'll say to you,

1050
00:55:25,801 --> 00:55:28,304
"Dad, it was so hard," or, "I'm so tired,"

1051
00:55:28,387 --> 00:55:31,223
or whatever
the typical reaction out of the kid.

1052
00:55:31,724 --> 00:55:34,977
You guys will leave, and then
Mark will look at all her answers.

1053
00:55:35,061 --> 00:55:36,812
Mark will then take the exam

1054
00:55:36,896 --> 00:55:40,816
and then ensure that whatever score
we decide that we want to get,

1055
00:55:40,900 --> 00:55:42,193
he has it down to a…

1056
00:55:42,276 --> 00:55:44,487
It's unbelievable what he can do.

1057
00:55:45,363 --> 00:55:47,782
She'll never know
that this actually occurred.

1058
00:55:47,865 --> 00:55:53,245
She'll look at her results and she'll say,
"Oh, my God, Dad, I got a 32."

1059
00:56:01,253 --> 00:56:03,089
[reporter] He's the test-taking whiz

1060
00:56:03,172 --> 00:56:07,593
who helped dozens of high school students
cheat on their college entrance exam.

1061
00:56:07,676 --> 00:56:12,014
Mark Riddell was the one who was
flying out to different testing locations

1062
00:56:12,098 --> 00:56:13,891
and proctoring or correcting answers.

1063
00:56:13,974 --> 00:56:17,645
I have a client
whose daughter was a big tennis player

1064
00:56:17,728 --> 00:56:19,939
and studied with him years ago.

1065
00:56:20,022 --> 00:56:26,654
He was a Harvard graduate who worked in
college exam prep for IMG Academy,

1066
00:56:26,737 --> 00:56:30,157
which is a school for athletes
in Bradenton, Florida,

1067
00:56:30,241 --> 00:56:32,410
where Serena and Venus Williams went.

1068
00:56:32,493 --> 00:56:34,078
[Andy Lockwood] Very unassuming guy.

1069
00:56:34,161 --> 00:56:38,666
But the story was after he had
his first child and needed more money,

1070
00:56:38,749 --> 00:56:42,503
that's how he kind of got caught up
in the pitch from Rick Singer

1071
00:56:42,586 --> 00:56:45,589
to make a few extra
thousand dollars here and there.

1072
00:56:46,382 --> 00:56:49,927
He did not have inside information
about the correct answers.

1073
00:56:50,010 --> 00:56:54,515
He was just smart enough
to get a near-perfect score on demand.

1074
00:56:54,598 --> 00:57:00,062
If Rick Singer is the linchpin
of this college admissions scandal,

1075
00:57:00,146 --> 00:57:02,982
then Mark Riddell is the brains.

1076
00:57:03,065 --> 00:57:05,901
[Bello] One of the things
that amuses me and annoys me

1077
00:57:05,985 --> 00:57:10,448
when I see most of the reports
around him being a test-taking savant,

1078
00:57:10,531 --> 00:57:13,617
or whatever they choose
to call him in the moment, um…

1079
00:57:13,701 --> 00:57:17,830
He's an adult who's taking a test
designed for 11th graders.

1080
00:57:17,913 --> 00:57:22,251
Anyone worth their salt
in the test preparation industry

1081
00:57:22,334 --> 00:57:24,628
should be able to do what he did.

1082
00:57:24,712 --> 00:57:27,089
The question is
would they be willing to do it.

1083
00:57:27,631 --> 00:57:30,384
[reporter] Singer, the admitted
mastermind behind the scheme,

1084
00:57:30,468 --> 00:57:33,012
paid Riddell $10,000 per test

1085
00:57:33,095 --> 00:57:37,766
to fly from his home in Florida
to test centers in Texas and California.

1086
00:57:37,850 --> 00:57:40,019
[Bello] Pretty much everything
in the higher ed system

1087
00:57:40,102 --> 00:57:42,855
is based on trust in other people.

1088
00:57:42,938 --> 00:57:46,859
At what dollar value will you be
willing to compromise your ethics?

1089
00:57:46,942 --> 00:57:48,569
That's the ultimate question.

1090
00:57:48,652 --> 00:57:53,574
For me, it keeps coming back to,
it's the wealthy who have the ability,

1091
00:57:53,657 --> 00:57:56,202
and, in this case,
the means and the willingness,

1092
00:57:56,285 --> 00:57:58,370
to take advantage of these things.

1093
00:57:59,163 --> 00:58:00,998
[Janavs] Rick, I had a question for you.

1094
00:58:01,081 --> 00:58:03,792
I was able to get
my younger daughter the multi-day ACT.

1095
00:58:03,876 --> 00:58:07,004
[Singer] Good. You got her extended time
over multiple days. Got it.

1096
00:58:07,087 --> 00:58:08,464
Yeah, so I got that.

1097
00:58:08,547 --> 00:58:11,842
The thing is, my younger daughter
is not like my older daughter.

1098
00:58:11,926 --> 00:58:12,885
She's not stupid.

1099
00:58:12,968 --> 00:58:15,763
If I said to her,
"Oh, we're gonna take it up at Rick's,"

1100
00:58:15,846 --> 00:58:17,223
she's gonna wonder why.

1101
00:58:19,058 --> 00:58:20,434
[reporter] Michelle Janavs,

1102
00:58:20,518 --> 00:58:23,687
whose family created
the famous snack Hot Pockets,

1103
00:58:23,771 --> 00:58:28,234
accused of paying 100 grand
to boost her daughter's ACT score

1104
00:58:28,317 --> 00:58:32,112
and get her into USC
as a bogus volleyball recruit.

1105
00:58:32,196 --> 00:58:34,740
[Janavs] How do you do this
without telling the kids?

1106
00:58:34,823 --> 00:58:38,035
Well, in most cases, Michelle,
none of the kids know.

1107
00:58:38,118 --> 00:58:39,203
Right, but how…

1108
00:58:39,286 --> 00:58:42,873
No, I understand she won't even know,
but how do you explain it to her?

1109
00:58:43,457 --> 00:58:44,917
You don't have to say anything.

1110
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:47,795
For the school,
say you'll be up in LA for the weekend.

1111
00:58:47,878 --> 00:58:49,797
[Janavs] That's what we did last time.

1112
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,466
My younger daughter
is the issue, because she'll say,

1113
00:58:52,550 --> 00:58:54,635
"Like, why am I taking it up there?"

1114
00:58:54,718 --> 00:58:57,972
You'll just say that,
"You're going to do it up here

1115
00:58:58,055 --> 00:59:01,225
because it's really easy.
It's convenient."

1116
00:59:02,142 --> 00:59:07,856
I thought the conversations that were
recorded on tape were achingly poignant.

1117
00:59:07,940 --> 00:59:10,985
You ache for the children
who read these transcripts,

1118
00:59:11,068 --> 00:59:13,862
and you may also ache
for the parents who, I'm sure,

1119
00:59:13,946 --> 00:59:15,948
bitterly regret being so candid.

1120
00:59:16,865 --> 00:59:17,908
She's smart.

1121
00:59:18,617 --> 00:59:20,327
She's gonna figure this out.

1122
00:59:21,036 --> 00:59:22,246
She's gonna say to me…

1123
00:59:23,163 --> 00:59:26,750
She already thinks that I'm,
like, up to no good, and I just…

1124
00:59:27,251 --> 00:59:29,211
I didn't wanna talk about this with her.

1125
00:59:29,295 --> 00:59:32,298
No, no, yeah, I got it. I totally get it.

1126
00:59:32,381 --> 00:59:34,883
[Janavs] She's totally different
than my older daughter.

1127
00:59:34,967 --> 00:59:36,885
Like, she really needs to think that…

1128
00:59:36,969 --> 00:59:39,847
My older daughter was like,
"I don't really care."

1129
00:59:39,930 --> 00:59:42,182
"This test is bullshit.
I don't wanna take it."

1130
00:59:42,266 --> 00:59:46,020
And my younger daughter is
actually studying to try to get a 34.

1131
00:59:46,103 --> 00:59:46,979
So it would…

1132
00:59:47,771 --> 00:59:49,940
It would actually be a great boost to her.

1133
00:59:50,024 --> 00:59:52,693
My older daughter,
she came to me and she was like,

1134
00:59:52,776 --> 00:59:55,029
"You're not gonna
tell my sister, are you?"

1135
00:59:55,112 --> 00:59:56,947
And I was like, "No."

1136
00:59:57,948 --> 00:59:59,116
It's weird.

1137
00:59:59,700 --> 01:00:03,203
It's just weird family dynamics,
but every kid is different.

1138
01:00:04,163 --> 01:00:04,997
Cool.

1139
01:00:11,337 --> 01:00:14,673
[Golden] Rick Singer's lifestyle
did change and become more lavish.

1140
01:00:14,757 --> 01:00:17,718
He moved from
Sacramento area to Newport Beach

1141
01:00:17,801 --> 01:00:20,179
and had a very nice house there.

1142
01:00:21,138 --> 01:00:25,100
Singer invested
in a whole bunch of quixotic ventures.

1143
01:00:25,184 --> 01:00:29,563
Restaurants, a soccer team,
and many other things.

1144
01:00:29,647 --> 01:00:31,148
So the money came in fast

1145
01:00:31,231 --> 01:00:35,152
and it seems to have gone out pretty fast
to his lifestyle and his investments.

1146
01:00:37,571 --> 01:00:38,947
[cell phone ringing]

1147
01:00:39,573 --> 01:00:41,408
[Logan] Rick called me
out of the blue and said,

1148
01:00:41,492 --> 01:00:43,327
"I haven't talked to you in a year.

1149
01:00:43,410 --> 01:00:46,205
I remember you
being extremely sharp with marketing

1150
01:00:46,288 --> 01:00:48,499
in the restaurant business,
in real estate.

1151
01:00:48,582 --> 01:00:51,126
I think you'd be perfect
as opening up and running

1152
01:00:51,210 --> 01:00:54,922
one of my offshoot companies
of my coaching business."

1153
01:00:55,005 --> 01:00:56,965
And I thought they sounded great.

1154
01:00:59,593 --> 01:01:03,639
Rick had invited a group of us
to a big conference up in LA

1155
01:01:03,722 --> 01:01:06,183
with all these
very high-powered individuals.

1156
01:01:06,266 --> 01:01:09,186
From my understanding,
there was an influx of many millions

1157
01:01:09,269 --> 01:01:12,481
coming in to help him
launch some of these businesses.

1158
01:01:12,564 --> 01:01:14,441
We all were assigned our positions,

1159
01:01:14,525 --> 01:01:18,028
and then we all took off to start up
these brand-new companies.

1160
01:01:18,112 --> 01:01:19,279
It was really exciting.

1161
01:01:19,863 --> 01:01:22,157
Rick offered to drive us
back to the airport.

1162
01:01:22,241 --> 01:01:26,203
[chuckling] So we get in his Tesla,
and it's rush hour traffic.

1163
01:01:26,286 --> 01:01:31,041
Rick is zipping in and out of traffic,
going 90 miles an hour.

1164
01:01:31,125 --> 01:01:33,460
We were on the edge of our seats,
hanging on.

1165
01:01:35,254 --> 01:01:38,298
So we finally
get to the airport in one piece.

1166
01:01:38,382 --> 01:01:41,385
He said, "Bye. Good to see you again.
I'll see you soon."

1167
01:01:41,468 --> 01:01:44,847
Go to give him a hug,
and he plants a kiss on me. [laughs]

1168
01:01:44,930 --> 01:01:47,850
And I said, "What was that all about?"

1169
01:01:47,933 --> 01:01:50,936
And he says, "Well, I wanted to see.

1170
01:01:51,019 --> 01:01:55,649
Maybe there's something here.
Maybe we could date."

1171
01:01:56,275 --> 01:01:59,737
I looked at him and said, "You know what?
I knew you from back when.

1172
01:01:59,820 --> 01:02:04,783
The amount of time that you spend
with your career, with your businesses,

1173
01:02:04,867 --> 01:02:08,120
the little amount of time
you'd even have to return a phone call,

1174
01:02:08,203 --> 01:02:13,542
let alone send a two-line text is…
We'll never work."

1175
01:02:18,505 --> 01:02:20,048
My name is Rick Singer.

1176
01:02:20,132 --> 01:02:23,135
My job is to life coach kids and families

1177
01:02:23,218 --> 01:02:25,429
through the process
of getting into college.

1178
01:02:25,512 --> 01:02:27,556
We have families in Champaign, in Miami.

1179
01:02:27,639 --> 01:02:32,144
They send their plane to come pick me up,
come to the meeting for a couple hours,

1180
01:02:32,227 --> 01:02:35,439
put me back on the plane,
send me to the next place I need to go.

1181
01:02:35,522 --> 01:02:36,440
It's amazing.

1182
01:02:36,523 --> 01:02:41,487
[Logan] When I watched that video
that he sent to do this reality show,

1183
01:02:41,570 --> 01:02:43,530
it was a bit shocking to me.

1184
01:02:43,614 --> 01:02:47,409
We work in the home of all these families,
so we know them intimately.

1185
01:02:47,493 --> 01:02:50,746
I know what their bedrooms look like,
what the laundry room looks like.

1186
01:02:50,829 --> 01:02:52,915
How they get along. So I know where…

1187
01:02:52,998 --> 01:02:57,878
I thought, "Really? You're gonna put
yourself out there like that for this?"

1188
01:02:57,961 --> 01:03:01,256
It just didn't make sense.
Everything was so private with him.

1189
01:03:01,340 --> 01:03:03,842
The whole time they're yelling,
"It's my life!

1190
01:03:03,926 --> 01:03:06,428
If you go to this school…
It's the wrong school.

1191
01:03:06,512 --> 01:03:10,265
I don't wanna pay 50,000
to go to this school!" Unbelievable.

1192
01:03:10,349 --> 01:03:11,683
It just didn't make sense,

1193
01:03:11,767 --> 01:03:17,439
especially at the caliber of the coach
that I, you know, believed that he was.

1194
01:03:19,149 --> 01:03:22,778
He didn't have
a lot of time for people in his life.

1195
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:26,949
He was married for years,
and he has a son.

1196
01:03:27,032 --> 01:03:30,577
When I met him, he was divorced
probably six, seven years.

1197
01:03:31,411 --> 01:03:33,580
He'd say, "I'll only do this coaching

1198
01:03:33,664 --> 01:03:37,626
for another three, four,
maybe five years, and then I'm done."

1199
01:03:40,337 --> 01:03:43,340
I don't know.
I really don't know what made him happy

1200
01:03:43,423 --> 01:03:46,385
or what his desires even were.

1201
01:03:46,885 --> 01:03:49,012
It's almost like on a rat wheel,

1202
01:03:49,096 --> 01:03:54,309
trying to get to a means to an end,
and there was really no end in sight.

1203
01:03:59,815 --> 01:04:03,610
[Caplan] So I… It's just you and me.
I mean, is that kosher? Can we--

1204
01:04:03,694 --> 01:04:04,695
[Singer] Absolutely.

1205
01:04:04,778 --> 01:04:07,155
Part of the reason
I'm taking my wife off this,

1206
01:04:07,239 --> 01:04:09,992
she's very nervous
about all this, and I just…

1207
01:04:10,075 --> 01:04:13,996
Uh, I wanna have a… um…
Let me ask you straight up.

1208
01:04:14,079 --> 01:04:17,916
You've never had an issue with this?
No one's ever gotten in trouble with this?

1209
01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:19,543
Never had an issue with anybody.

1210
01:04:20,210 --> 01:04:21,920
[Caplan] Could you ever
see that happening?

1211
01:04:22,004 --> 01:04:23,171
I'm not…

1212
01:04:24,423 --> 01:04:25,757
I've never seen it happen.

1213
01:04:25,841 --> 01:04:29,177
[Caplan] What I'm asking is
could this ever get back to my daughter

1214
01:04:29,261 --> 01:04:30,888
or to the family?

1215
01:04:30,971 --> 01:04:33,348
I mean, this comes out… I, uh…

1216
01:04:33,432 --> 01:04:36,435
[chuckles] I don't…
I don't even wanna know what you guys do.

1217
01:04:36,518 --> 01:04:39,730
I'm just…
Uh, Rick, so you… you understand--

1218
01:04:39,813 --> 01:04:41,398
No, I totally get it.

1219
01:04:41,481 --> 01:04:44,443
[Caplan] You're absolutely confident
there's no issue here?

1220
01:04:45,277 --> 01:04:46,111
[chuckles]

1221
01:04:46,194 --> 01:04:48,238
We've been doing this for a long time.

1222
01:04:48,322 --> 01:04:49,907
[Caplan] Let me put it differently.

1223
01:04:49,990 --> 01:04:53,660
If somebody were to catch this,
what happens?

1224
01:04:53,744 --> 01:04:57,122
The only way someone can catch it
is if you guys tell someone.

1225
01:04:57,205 --> 01:04:59,541
-[Caplan] I'm not gonna tell anybody.
-Well?

1226
01:04:59,625 --> 01:05:01,168
[Caplan] It's just…

1227
01:05:01,251 --> 01:05:04,504
To be honest, I'm not
worried about the moral issue here.

1228
01:05:04,588 --> 01:05:06,673
I'm worried about the…

1229
01:05:06,757 --> 01:05:10,302
She gets caught doing that,
you know, she's finished.

1230
01:05:10,385 --> 01:05:12,137
So I… I just, uh…

1231
01:05:12,220 --> 01:05:14,890
It's never happened before
in 20-some-odd years.

1232
01:05:14,973 --> 01:05:16,892
The only thing that can happen is if--

1233
01:05:16,975 --> 01:05:20,729
-[Caplan] Someone talks.
-Yeah, if she tells somebody.

1234
01:05:20,812 --> 01:05:23,899
[Caplan] Oh, yeah.
I, uh… She… She won't talk.

1235
01:05:28,946 --> 01:05:33,867
Singer didn't make a fateful mistake
that led to his being, uh, exposed.

1236
01:05:33,951 --> 01:05:36,495
What happened
is that somebody was arrested

1237
01:05:36,578 --> 01:05:39,331
on an unrelated securities charge,

1238
01:05:39,414 --> 01:05:41,708
and that person traded information.

1239
01:05:42,376 --> 01:05:43,877
That financial executive said,

1240
01:05:43,961 --> 01:05:47,923
"You may be interested to know that
a coach at Yale asked me for a bribe."

1241
01:05:48,006 --> 01:05:50,467
A gentleman by the name of Rudy Meredith,

1242
01:05:50,550 --> 01:05:55,180
who had been working with parents
to get their children into Yale

1243
01:05:55,263 --> 01:05:59,142
under the guise
that they were going to be soccer players.

1244
01:05:59,226 --> 01:06:01,645
The first question they ask Mr. Meredith

1245
01:06:01,728 --> 01:06:04,731
after they investigated
and indicted him was,

1246
01:06:04,815 --> 01:06:07,109
"Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

1247
01:06:07,192 --> 01:06:10,153
"Yes, there is.
There's a gentleman named Rick Singer

1248
01:06:10,237 --> 01:06:11,571
who I'd like to introduce you to,

1249
01:06:11,655 --> 01:06:16,201
and I'm happy to cooperate against him
because I don't wanna go to prison."

1250
01:06:16,284 --> 01:06:19,538
So just like that,
Rudy Meredith is a cooperating informant.

1251
01:06:19,621 --> 01:06:21,415
Then he cooperates against Singer.

1252
01:06:23,500 --> 01:06:24,751
[cell phone dings]

1253
01:06:33,385 --> 01:06:34,678
[cell phone dings]

1254
01:06:38,223 --> 01:06:39,766
[cell phone dings]

1255
01:06:51,611 --> 01:06:52,696
Thank you.

1256
01:07:16,219 --> 01:07:17,054
Hi, Rick.

1257
01:07:21,725 --> 01:07:23,268
Why don't you step inside?

1258
01:07:29,816 --> 01:07:31,026
[door creaking]

1259
01:07:33,361 --> 01:07:35,155
[Singer]
It will happen as though…

1260
01:07:35,238 --> 01:07:38,408
She will think she's really super smart
and she got lucky on a test,

1261
01:07:38,492 --> 01:07:39,951
and you got a score now.

1262
01:07:40,035 --> 01:07:41,787
It's the home run of home runs.

1263
01:07:41,870 --> 01:07:43,830
-[Caplan] And it works?
-[Singer] Every time.

1264
01:07:43,914 --> 01:07:45,082
[Singer and Caplan chuckle]

1265
01:07:50,587 --> 01:07:53,423
[agent] Singer agreed
to cooperate with our investigation

1266
01:07:53,507 --> 01:07:55,133
and to be interviewed.

1267
01:07:55,217 --> 01:07:58,678
However, he was not fully forthcoming
regarding parts of his scheme,

1268
01:07:58,762 --> 01:08:01,640
and it was my impression
that he was not taking

1269
01:08:01,723 --> 01:08:04,101
full responsibility for his conduct.

1270
01:08:04,184 --> 01:08:06,686
Singer told us that
the payments he and his clients

1271
01:08:06,770 --> 01:08:10,690
made to university
athletics programs were donations.

1272
01:08:10,774 --> 01:08:13,318
We informed him that a payment in exchange

1273
01:08:13,401 --> 01:08:17,280
for recruiting a fake student athlete
to an athletic team is illegal.

1274
01:08:18,198 --> 01:08:21,243
The next day,
after consulting with his attorney,

1275
01:08:21,326 --> 01:08:24,496
Singer agreed
to consensually record phone calls

1276
01:08:24,579 --> 01:08:27,332
with other individuals
involved in his scheme.

1277
01:08:27,916 --> 01:08:31,753
For those calls,
we instructed Singer to engage in a ruse.

1278
01:08:35,590 --> 01:08:39,052
[Singer] Uh, so the reason
I'm calling is, uh, so,

1279
01:08:39,136 --> 01:08:42,264
uh, my foundation is getting audited now.

1280
01:08:42,347 --> 01:08:45,058
-Oh. Well, that sucks.
-[Singer] Uh… Yeah. Right?

1281
01:08:45,142 --> 01:08:47,686
-They're going back like they always do.
-Yeah.

1282
01:08:47,769 --> 01:08:50,772
[reporter 1] Elizabeth and
Manuel Henriquezof Atherton.

1283
01:08:50,856 --> 01:08:54,234
[reporter 2] They're accused
of paying $400,000 in bribes.

1284
01:08:54,317 --> 01:08:56,528
So they're taking a look
at all my payments.

1285
01:08:56,611 --> 01:08:59,906
They asked about the large sums
of money that came in from you guys.

1286
01:08:59,990 --> 01:09:00,824
[Elizabeth] Okay.

1287
01:09:00,907 --> 01:09:03,410
-[Singer] Essentially--
-For all the good deeds that you do.

1288
01:09:03,493 --> 01:09:06,788
[Singer] Absolutely. Of course
I didn't say anything, you know?

1289
01:09:06,872 --> 01:09:11,710
I'm not gonna tell the IRS that Mark took
the test for Isabelle, or that Gordie--

1290
01:09:11,793 --> 01:09:13,128
[Elizabeth] Mm-hmm, right. Yeah.

1291
01:09:13,211 --> 01:09:17,340
[Singer] Or that Gordie… Uh, we paid
Gordieto help get into Georgetown, right?

1292
01:09:17,424 --> 01:09:18,341
Right.

1293
01:09:18,425 --> 01:09:22,262
[Singer] So I just wanna make sure
that you and I are on the same page.

1294
01:09:22,345 --> 01:09:24,306
-Okay.
-[Singer] In case they were to call.

1295
01:09:24,389 --> 01:09:25,807
So what's your story?

1296
01:09:25,891 --> 01:09:30,061
So my story is essentially that
you gave your money to our foundation

1297
01:09:30,145 --> 01:09:31,897
to help underserved kids.

1298
01:09:31,980 --> 01:09:34,566
-[Elizabeth] You… Uh… Of course.
-[Singer] And, uh…

1299
01:09:34,649 --> 01:09:36,443
[Elizabeth] Those kids
have to go to school.

1300
01:09:36,526 --> 01:09:37,611
Absolutely.

1301
01:09:45,952 --> 01:09:46,786
Okay.

1302
01:09:46,870 --> 01:09:49,873
[Paperny] I'm not surprised
at Singer's level of involvement.

1303
01:09:49,956 --> 01:09:53,043
Much like he seized
an opportunity to enrich himself

1304
01:09:53,126 --> 01:09:55,086
to help get their children into school,

1305
01:09:55,170 --> 01:09:58,673
he equally seized another opportunity
to earn cooperation credit.

1306
01:09:58,757 --> 01:10:01,176
He was just as zealous
in cooperating

1307
01:10:01,259 --> 01:10:04,387
as he was in getting parents
to pay him to get their kids into school.

1308
01:10:15,315 --> 01:10:19,277
-So there's no paper trail of money?
-No, there's no paper trail of money.

1309
01:10:19,361 --> 01:10:20,737
Right.

1310
01:10:20,820 --> 01:10:22,906
So why did Isabelle
do the test in Houston?

1311
01:10:22,989 --> 01:10:24,699
We gotta get into that story.

1312
01:10:26,034 --> 01:10:27,786
So let me go into it. Uh…

1313
01:10:29,913 --> 01:10:32,916
Essentially, there's nowhere
where anybody knows,

1314
01:10:32,999 --> 01:10:36,836
because, in my books, it doesn't show
that there was any money paid to Mark

1315
01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:39,756
for taking the test for Isabelle. Okay?

1316
01:10:39,839 --> 01:10:43,343
It doesn't show anything at all
in our foundation or anything.

1317
01:10:43,426 --> 01:10:44,469
Just so you know.

1318
01:10:45,845 --> 01:10:46,846
Right.

1319
01:10:46,930 --> 01:10:50,642
So the question is, uh,
if anybody calls me, the response is,

1320
01:10:50,725 --> 01:10:52,686
"No comment on the Houston issue."

1321
01:10:52,769 --> 01:10:55,021
Remember, she went there
because she needed special--

1322
01:10:55,105 --> 01:10:57,315
-I understand.
-Accommodations.

1323
01:10:58,149 --> 01:10:59,484
Accommodations.

1324
01:10:59,567 --> 01:11:01,111
But I'm not gonna comment.

1325
01:11:01,778 --> 01:11:04,239
We gotta be very careful
getting inbound calls.

1326
01:11:04,906 --> 01:11:06,199
"I've no idea who you are,

1327
01:11:06,283 --> 01:11:08,868
so I won't respond
to an inbound call from anybody."

1328
01:11:36,521 --> 01:11:39,566
[Vandemoer] Rick said,
"I wanna continue our relationship."

1329
01:11:39,649 --> 01:11:42,861
"I wanna call you in a week,
and talk about another donation

1330
01:11:42,944 --> 01:11:46,364
like I did with the $110,000.
I'd like to continue to do that."

1331
01:11:46,448 --> 01:11:48,908
I said, "Great."
So he was true to his word.

1332
01:11:48,992 --> 01:11:51,578
He called me a week to two weeks later.

1333
01:11:51,661 --> 01:11:53,413
I was rushing out the door,

1334
01:11:53,496 --> 01:11:56,166
but he's talking to me
the whole time on this call.

1335
01:11:56,249 --> 01:11:58,001
I'm just "yeah-ing" him to death.

1336
01:11:58,084 --> 01:12:02,422
He said he wants to donate $160,000
right now, and he'd give the rest later,

1337
01:12:02,505 --> 01:12:04,924
to continue a deposit on our relationship.

1338
01:12:05,008 --> 01:12:08,178
The only word
I really picked up was "deposit."

1339
01:12:08,762 --> 01:12:10,930
I took it as his deposit on a relationship

1340
01:12:11,014 --> 01:12:14,100
was that he would
bring me more recruits to consider.

1341
01:12:14,184 --> 01:12:16,478
And we'd see how it would go from there.

1342
01:12:16,561 --> 01:12:20,231
Then I didn't hear anything from
Rick again and still haven't, actually.

1343
01:12:20,315 --> 01:12:22,442
That was the last conversation we had.

1344
01:12:23,109 --> 01:12:25,445
That phone call was set up by the FBI.

1345
01:12:25,528 --> 01:12:28,031
It turns out that was the most, uh…

1346
01:12:28,114 --> 01:12:30,950
tragic and most devastating
phone call of my life.

1347
01:12:31,034 --> 01:12:33,453
[Singer] I wanna make sure
we're confirmed that,

1348
01:12:33,536 --> 01:12:37,123
going forward, I'm going to at least
potentially have a spot with you.

1349
01:12:37,207 --> 01:12:41,169
It'll probably be an athlete like the
other student who wasn't an actual sailor.

1350
01:12:41,252 --> 01:12:42,128
[Vandemoer] Okay.

1351
01:12:42,212 --> 01:12:44,130
I'll put together a profile for her,

1352
01:12:44,214 --> 01:12:48,593
and, uh… put all the major regattas
that I come up with from the Internet,

1353
01:12:48,676 --> 01:12:50,178
and bring someone to you.

1354
01:12:50,261 --> 01:12:53,056
-Then we'll make a payment to you again.
-[Vandemoer] Great.

1355
01:12:53,556 --> 01:12:55,517
[man] As someone who's defending somebody,

1356
01:12:55,600 --> 01:12:58,269
how did you feel hearing that tape?

1357
01:13:00,438 --> 01:13:01,940
Um… [chuckles]

1358
01:13:02,899 --> 01:13:05,610
It wasn't good, um, from my point of view.

1359
01:13:05,693 --> 01:13:06,569
Um…

1360
01:13:07,153 --> 01:13:09,989
And it would have been tough at trial.
Tapes are…

1361
01:13:10,073 --> 01:13:12,909
When I was a prosecutor,
I did a lot of wiretaps.

1362
01:13:12,992 --> 01:13:15,829
And I played
a lot of wiretap calls or tapes.

1363
01:13:15,912 --> 01:13:18,706
And juries love hearing wiretap calls.

1364
01:13:19,290 --> 01:13:21,709
They can be good evidence.
I explained that to him.

1365
01:13:21,793 --> 01:13:24,546
I heard the call.
I thought this was a good one,

1366
01:13:24,629 --> 01:13:26,881
and it could be tough to explain.

1367
01:13:27,465 --> 01:13:31,302
[Singer] So I wanted to let you know,
our foundation is… is being audited.

1368
01:13:31,386 --> 01:13:32,303
Yeah.

1369
01:13:32,387 --> 01:13:34,973
-[Singer] Which is very normal, right?
-Yeah.

1370
01:13:35,056 --> 01:13:36,933
[Singer] They've been
auditing my foundation.

1371
01:13:37,016 --> 01:13:37,851
Okay.

1372
01:13:37,934 --> 01:13:40,270
-[Singer] Which is pretty typical.
-Uh-huh.

1373
01:13:40,353 --> 01:13:43,189
-[Singer] My foundation is being audited.
-Uh-huh.

1374
01:13:43,273 --> 01:13:45,400
Like everybody
on the planet, huh? [chuckles]

1375
01:13:45,483 --> 01:13:46,359
[man] Sure.

1376
01:13:46,443 --> 01:13:48,194
So they've been looking at…

1377
01:13:48,278 --> 01:13:51,114
[Fisher] This wasn't
a typical sting operation.

1378
01:13:51,197 --> 01:13:53,700
If you look back
at the larger, white-collar cases,

1379
01:13:53,783 --> 01:13:56,536
Enron, for example,
the leadership is indicted.

1380
01:13:56,619 --> 01:14:01,833
Maybe the CEO, the CFO, uh, the COO,
and then, really, the indictments end.

1381
01:14:01,916 --> 01:14:06,880
Traditionally, a large RICO indictment
like this is gonna be organized crime.

1382
01:14:06,963 --> 01:14:09,507
If you're going after
a syndicate that deals drugs,

1383
01:14:09,591 --> 01:14:12,093
you start with local level dealers,
flip one of them,

1384
01:14:12,177 --> 01:14:14,804
get a wire, work your way
up to the middle-level dealer,

1385
01:14:14,888 --> 01:14:16,764
and you end up with the kingpin.

1386
01:14:16,848 --> 01:14:21,102
Here, Rick Singer was selling the product,
and yet you had him first.

1387
01:14:21,186 --> 01:14:25,148
Then you worked your way down the chain
to get the buyers of the product.

1388
01:14:25,231 --> 01:14:27,692
[Singer] They started
an audit on my foundation.

1389
01:14:27,775 --> 01:14:28,610
Yeah.

1390
01:14:28,693 --> 01:14:30,778
-[Singer] Which is typical, right?
-Okay.

1391
01:14:30,862 --> 01:14:32,989
-[Singer] Which is pretty natural.
-Yeah.

1392
01:14:33,072 --> 01:14:34,365
[Singer] I'm gonna tell the IRS

1393
01:14:34,449 --> 01:14:37,285
that your donation
to our foundation essentially went--

1394
01:14:37,368 --> 01:14:39,662
Wait, wait, Rick.
Let me ask you a question.

1395
01:14:39,746 --> 01:14:43,166
Shouldn't we get together over this
as opposed to over the phone?

1396
01:14:43,249 --> 01:14:44,959
[Singer] Whatever you wanna do. I'm fine.

1397
01:14:45,043 --> 01:14:49,339
All I'm gonna tell the IRS
is that your donation to our foundation

1398
01:14:49,422 --> 01:14:52,091
went to help underserved kids. That's it.

1399
01:14:52,175 --> 01:14:53,510
[Sloane] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1400
01:14:53,593 --> 01:14:55,803
[Paperny] In listening
to some of the tapes of Singer,

1401
01:14:55,887 --> 01:14:58,139
he's as skilled as I've ever heard

1402
01:14:58,223 --> 01:15:01,893
of getting someone
to acknowledge wrongdoing.

1403
01:15:01,976 --> 01:15:03,895
Yeah, he was pretty good on the phone,

1404
01:15:03,978 --> 01:15:07,357
but that's only gonna work
with these white-collar professionals.

1405
01:15:07,440 --> 01:15:12,320
Historically, white-collar defendants
have almost no filter on the phone.

1406
01:15:12,403 --> 01:15:16,199
We know people at Goldman Sachs
who, you know, recommended you highly.

1407
01:15:16,282 --> 01:15:19,869
My husband and I laugh every day
about how great your work was.

1408
01:15:19,953 --> 01:15:22,205
We're like, "It was worth every cent."

1409
01:15:22,288 --> 01:15:25,333
If he was talking
to organized crime members,

1410
01:15:25,416 --> 01:15:29,587
he would have been made as a cooperator
within 30 seconds on the call.

1411
01:15:29,671 --> 01:15:34,092
So, what I want is to make sure
that you and I are both on the same page.

1412
01:15:34,676 --> 01:15:36,177
Because I'm going to tell them

1413
01:15:36,261 --> 01:15:41,391
that you made a $50K donation
to my foundation to help underserved kids.

1414
01:15:41,474 --> 01:15:43,935
Not that Mark
took the test for your daughter

1415
01:15:44,018 --> 01:15:46,729
or that she took the test
at the West Hollywood test center.

1416
01:15:46,813 --> 01:15:48,398
What do you think, I'm a moron?

1417
01:15:48,481 --> 01:15:51,901
No, I… I'm not saying you're a moron.
The point is that--

1418
01:15:51,985 --> 01:15:53,653
[Huneeus] I got it, Rick. I got it.

1419
01:15:53,736 --> 01:15:55,196
I'll say I've been inspired,

1420
01:15:55,280 --> 01:15:58,700
how you're helping underprivileged
kids get into college. Got it.

1421
01:15:58,783 --> 01:16:00,326
Hey, Rick. I…

1422
01:16:00,410 --> 01:16:01,953
You know, I don't…

1423
01:16:02,036 --> 01:16:04,789
You know, whatever you do,
you do, you know?

1424
01:16:04,872 --> 01:16:07,709
I really don't feel comfortable
talking to you about this

1425
01:16:07,792 --> 01:16:09,961
in terms of kind of, you know, your…

1426
01:16:10,044 --> 01:16:10,878
In terms of…

1427
01:16:10,962 --> 01:16:13,423
In terms of kind of your…
You know, your dealings.

1428
01:16:14,007 --> 01:16:17,135
[reporter] Stephen Semprevivo,
a Los Angeles businessman,

1429
01:16:17,218 --> 01:16:23,433
paying $400,000 to get his son
into Georgetown as a fake tennis recruit.

1430
01:16:23,516 --> 01:16:26,728
You know, all I know is that
we used you for the charity stuff

1431
01:16:26,811 --> 01:16:28,563
and we used you for the counseling,

1432
01:16:28,646 --> 01:16:31,149
and your dealings are your dealings.
And so, you know…

1433
01:16:31,232 --> 01:16:33,109
[Singer] No, I get that.
I understand that.

1434
01:16:33,192 --> 01:16:35,194
But at the same time, we were all a part--

1435
01:16:35,278 --> 01:16:37,363
No, I don't agree with that at all.

1436
01:16:37,447 --> 01:16:39,782
You don't agree
that we got him in through tennis?

1437
01:16:39,866 --> 01:16:41,701
[Semprevivo] I don't. I don't. I…

1438
01:16:41,784 --> 01:16:44,912
You know, you did what you did,
and that was your stuff, okay?

1439
01:16:44,996 --> 01:16:46,789
-Okay.
-You did what you did.

1440
01:16:46,873 --> 01:16:50,460
I won't take accountability for it.
You need to be accountable for--

1441
01:16:50,543 --> 01:16:52,920
[Singer] Absolutely.
I'm absolutely accountable,

1442
01:16:53,004 --> 01:16:55,923
that I got him in through tennis,
and that you guys were aware of it.

1443
01:16:56,007 --> 01:16:59,302
I'm totally aware of it
and I accept total responsibility

1444
01:16:59,385 --> 01:17:02,680
that I used my relationship
and made your son a tennis player.

1445
01:17:02,764 --> 01:17:05,558
We all agreed
that that's what we were going to do.

1446
01:17:05,642 --> 01:17:07,310
You know, I don't have any details,

1447
01:17:07,393 --> 01:17:10,229
but I think you need
to be accountable for what you did.

1448
01:17:10,313 --> 01:17:13,316
So I don't wanna talk
about this anymore because, you know…

1449
01:17:13,399 --> 01:17:15,693
I think there were two separate things.

1450
01:17:15,777 --> 01:17:18,655
And we used you, and we donated.

1451
01:17:18,738 --> 01:17:21,240
We donated as a charity,
and it was a good charity.

1452
01:17:21,324 --> 01:17:22,825
We were excited we could help.

1453
01:17:22,909 --> 01:17:25,662
In terms of
how you do favors for people separately,

1454
01:17:25,745 --> 01:17:28,081
that's, you know, I…

1455
01:17:28,873 --> 01:17:31,626
We appreciate any help you gave us.

1456
01:17:31,709 --> 01:17:34,504
But, you know,
we used you in terms of the…

1457
01:17:34,587 --> 01:17:36,798
In terms of your college stuff.

1458
01:17:36,881 --> 01:17:39,592
We paid you well
for the work you did there separately.

1459
01:17:39,676 --> 01:17:42,053
So… And we appreciate it.

1460
01:17:42,136 --> 01:17:43,471
So I think that…

1461
01:17:44,305 --> 01:17:46,099
If you're trying to turn something around

1462
01:17:46,182 --> 01:17:48,351
in terms of what you did
and how you did it,

1463
01:17:48,434 --> 01:17:49,560
then I don't wanna be…

1464
01:17:49,644 --> 01:17:51,270
I don't wanna be a part of that.

1465
01:17:51,979 --> 01:17:55,775
You know, I'm so paranoid about
this fucking thing you were talking about,

1466
01:17:55,858 --> 01:17:58,236
I don't like talking about it
on the phone.

1467
01:17:59,112 --> 01:18:02,699
I mean, I'm thinking, you know, are they…

1468
01:18:02,782 --> 01:18:05,743
I can't imagine they'd go
to the trouble of tapping my phone,

1469
01:18:05,827 --> 01:18:08,162
but would they tap
someone like your phones?

1470
01:18:08,246 --> 01:18:11,457
[reporter] Real estate tycoon
Bruce Isackson and his wife Davina

1471
01:18:11,541 --> 01:18:14,210
paying $600,000 to help
their two daughters

1472
01:18:14,293 --> 01:18:16,170
get into UCLA and USC

1473
01:18:16,254 --> 01:18:20,133
through the test cheating scheme
and the athletic recruitment scheme.

1474
01:18:20,633 --> 01:18:23,594
Worst case, we'd get a call
from them and they'd say to you,

1475
01:18:23,678 --> 01:18:25,471
"Prove you gave this money…"

1476
01:18:25,555 --> 01:18:27,640
-They'd ask for some.
-But you did.

1477
01:18:27,724 --> 01:18:28,975
[breathing heavily] Yeah.

1478
01:18:29,600 --> 01:18:32,019
But… I'm just thinking that…

1479
01:18:32,103 --> 01:18:34,647
Oh, my God. [sputtering]
Because you're thinking…

1480
01:18:34,731 --> 01:18:40,069
If they get into the meat and potatoes,
is this gonna be a front-page story?

1481
01:18:40,153 --> 01:18:42,071
Well, the person
who'd be on the front page--

1482
01:18:42,155 --> 01:18:44,115
[Isackson] Yeah, but will I… But… But if…

1483
01:18:44,198 --> 01:18:48,119
If they got into the meat and potatoes,
which a guy would love to have is…

1484
01:18:48,202 --> 01:18:51,122
Look how hard it is
for these kids to get into college and…

1485
01:18:51,205 --> 01:18:53,166
Look what's going on behind the scenes.

1486
01:18:53,249 --> 01:18:57,170
And then… you know, the embarrassment
to everyone in the communities.

1487
01:18:57,253 --> 01:18:58,129
My God.

1488
01:18:59,255 --> 01:19:00,339
It'd just be, uh…

1489
01:19:02,383 --> 01:19:03,718
God, just…

1490
01:19:04,594 --> 01:19:05,762
Oh…

1491
01:19:17,857 --> 01:19:21,986
[Vandemoer] Fast forward a couple months,
we go through the Christmas season,

1492
01:19:22,069 --> 01:19:25,364
we get a knock on the door
at 7:00, 7:30 in the morning

1493
01:19:25,448 --> 01:19:27,825
and it's two women.

1494
01:19:27,909 --> 01:19:30,036
They kinda hold up badges and say,

1495
01:19:30,119 --> 01:19:33,080
"I'm from the IRS,"
and "I'm from the FBI."

1496
01:19:33,164 --> 01:19:35,917
I said, "What's this about?
What can I help you with?"

1497
01:19:36,000 --> 01:19:40,213
"Oh, we just have a few questions
in terms of college admissions and so on."

1498
01:19:40,296 --> 01:19:42,215
I said, "Whatever I can do to help."

1499
01:19:42,298 --> 01:19:45,259
The FBI agent started
asking questions about Rick Singer.

1500
01:19:45,343 --> 01:19:48,346
I described our relationship,
that he brought me recruits,

1501
01:19:48,429 --> 01:19:50,348
he was donating, and they said,

1502
01:19:50,431 --> 01:19:53,684
"No, that's not what it was.
It was you taking bribes."

1503
01:19:53,768 --> 01:19:55,978
They kinda wrapped up with saying that,

1504
01:19:56,062 --> 01:19:58,731
"Stanford knows about this.
They're really angry with you."

1505
01:19:59,315 --> 01:20:01,984
They gave me their cards
and they said goodbye.

1506
01:20:03,027 --> 01:20:06,906
I promptly went upstairs,
sat down on my bed and cried.

1507
01:20:06,989 --> 01:20:08,950
I didn't know what happened.

1508
01:20:09,033 --> 01:20:12,370
John Vandemoer reached out to me.
He was in need of an attorney.

1509
01:20:12,453 --> 01:20:14,205
There was such a sense of urgency.

1510
01:20:14,288 --> 01:20:16,207
"You have to meet him before next week.

1511
01:20:16,290 --> 01:20:20,211
We have to know if he's gonna take
a plea deal or not within 48 hours."

1512
01:20:20,294 --> 01:20:21,963
He flew in the red-eye.

1513
01:20:22,839 --> 01:20:26,217
I'd never met him before,
but he just looked… He was tired,

1514
01:20:26,300 --> 01:20:30,096
and obviously extremely upset
at what was about to happen.

1515
01:20:30,179 --> 01:20:34,976
And he says, "So it's not good.
You're being charged with mail fraud,

1516
01:20:35,059 --> 01:20:36,769
tax fraud and wire fraud."

1517
01:20:36,853 --> 01:20:39,856
"Each of those counts carry
a 20-year sentence in prison."

1518
01:20:39,939 --> 01:20:42,859
The allegation is that he joined
Rick Singer's conspiracy,

1519
01:20:42,942 --> 01:20:46,571
the object of which was to help
these students, who were not sailors,

1520
01:20:46,654 --> 01:20:50,575
get recruited for his team so they would
gain access or admission to Stanford.

1521
01:20:50,658 --> 01:20:51,742
In exchange for that,

1522
01:20:51,826 --> 01:20:54,996
Rick would wire him money or mail a check,
or hand him a check.

1523
01:20:55,079 --> 01:20:57,498
That triggers
the wire fraud and the mail fraud.

1524
01:20:57,582 --> 01:21:00,918
[Vandemoer] They already had Stanford
willing to testify against me.

1525
01:21:01,002 --> 01:21:03,379
Rick Singer was gonna testify against me.

1526
01:21:03,462 --> 01:21:06,132
I didn't really
have any evidence on my side.

1527
01:21:06,215 --> 01:21:08,801
Between my wife and my dad and I,

1528
01:21:08,885 --> 01:21:12,388
we kinda decided that it made
sense for me to plead guilty,

1529
01:21:12,471 --> 01:21:14,682
um, and be a felon
for the rest of my life.

1530
01:21:17,059 --> 01:21:20,646
[Fisher] When you plead guilty, you must
meet with the Department of Probation.

1531
01:21:20,730 --> 01:21:22,064
He was being interviewed.

1532
01:21:22,148 --> 01:21:26,277
[Vandemoer] At the time when I was in that
interview, that's when the story broke.

1533
01:21:26,360 --> 01:21:30,573
We're here today to announce charges
in the largest college admissions scam

1534
01:21:30,656 --> 01:21:33,075
ever prosecuted
by the Department of Justice.

1535
01:21:33,576 --> 01:21:36,162
We've charged 50 people nationwide.

1536
01:21:36,245 --> 01:21:40,166
[Witz] I was in Las Vegas covering
some conference basketball tournament

1537
01:21:40,249 --> 01:21:44,754
when I got a phone call early
in the morning from an editor saying,

1538
01:21:44,837 --> 01:21:49,550
"What are you doing? Whatever it is,
drop it and get to Los Angeles."

1539
01:21:49,634 --> 01:21:52,929
Breaking headline of that massive
college cheating scandal late today.

1540
01:21:53,012 --> 01:21:56,724
Dozens of actors, coaches
and CEOs are among those charged.

1541
01:21:57,975 --> 01:22:00,645
[Fisher] And my phone started blowing up.

1542
01:22:00,728 --> 01:22:03,105
[Vandemoer] My lawyer was looking
at his phone the whole time,

1543
01:22:03,189 --> 01:22:05,733
and it was like, you know, "This is huge."

1544
01:22:05,816 --> 01:22:09,028
Thirty-three parents have been charged,
including Lori Loughlin…

1545
01:22:09,111 --> 01:22:10,905
[reporter] Authorities arrest
Felicity Huffman

1546
01:22:10,988 --> 01:22:12,448
at her Hollywood Hills home.

1547
01:22:12,531 --> 01:22:14,492
They had guns drawn and everything.

1548
01:22:14,575 --> 01:22:16,285
[reporter 2] Raids on
the homes of the rich.

1549
01:22:16,369 --> 01:22:17,411
[officer] FBI!

1550
01:22:17,495 --> 01:22:20,039
Every single one
of these parents should be in jail.

1551
01:22:20,122 --> 01:22:22,500
How the schools fell for these photoshops…

1552
01:22:22,583 --> 01:22:24,794
Use your heads, people. That's not…

1553
01:22:24,877 --> 01:22:28,881
Olivia Giannulli was famous
for her presence on social media.

1554
01:22:28,965 --> 01:22:32,134
Now she's become
target number one for public outrage.

1555
01:22:32,218 --> 01:22:34,553
[reporter 3] Her famous parents
are charged with spending

1556
01:22:34,637 --> 01:22:38,265
half a million dollars in bribes
to get their daughters into USC.

1557
01:22:38,349 --> 01:22:40,559
I started watching Olivia three years ago.

1558
01:22:40,643 --> 01:22:43,729
I've been watching pretty much
every single one of her videos.

1559
01:22:43,813 --> 01:22:47,775
She goes and cheats to get into school?

1560
01:22:47,858 --> 01:22:51,821
And takes a spot
from possibly one of her own fans?

1561
01:22:51,904 --> 01:22:53,739
She lost a lot of her sponsorships.

1562
01:22:53,823 --> 01:22:57,576
They discontinued a makeup palette
that she did with Sephora.

1563
01:22:58,577 --> 01:23:00,204
[cameraman] Hey, Olivia. How are you?

1564
01:23:00,287 --> 01:23:04,709
How are you after the college scandal?
Have you been speaking to your mom?

1565
01:23:04,792 --> 01:23:10,297
[Fry] In a weird way, she has almost
become a bigger celebrity because of this.

1566
01:23:10,381 --> 01:23:13,676
[cameraman] Olivia, it's good to see you
back out and about.

1567
01:23:13,759 --> 01:23:14,885
Feeling confident?

1568
01:23:14,969 --> 01:23:20,391
People attacked her on Instagram
and her comments were flooded with stuff.

1569
01:23:20,474 --> 01:23:23,477
[girl] She can look at
people's comments on the Internet

1570
01:23:23,561 --> 01:23:25,604
and be, "They're just trolls." No.

1571
01:23:25,688 --> 01:23:28,733
I'm not trolling you, dude.
I'm pissed.

1572
01:23:28,816 --> 01:23:30,359
I'm disappointed in you.

1573
01:23:30,943 --> 01:23:35,865
And, um… the only thing
I have left to say about this…

1574
01:23:38,159 --> 01:23:39,368
[reporters clamoring]

1575
01:23:41,412 --> 01:23:45,833
[reporter] John Vandemoer agreed to accept
more than $600,000 from Rick Singer,

1576
01:23:45,916 --> 01:23:49,045
the alleged mastermind
of the college admissions scandal.

1577
01:23:49,128 --> 01:23:52,590
A neighbor texted me and said,
"Are you reading those articles?"

1578
01:23:52,673 --> 01:23:54,091
"Do you see who it is?"

1579
01:23:54,175 --> 01:23:57,428
And it was,
"Oh, my gosh, it's Rick Singer."

1580
01:23:57,511 --> 01:23:59,180
I started jumping up and down.

1581
01:23:59,263 --> 01:24:00,931
I said, "I can't believe it."

1582
01:24:01,015 --> 01:24:04,518
"I can't believe they caught the guy.
I cannot believe it."

1583
01:24:04,602 --> 01:24:07,646
The messages I was getting
on my phone, the news alerts,

1584
01:24:07,730 --> 01:24:09,774
it really was, I thought,

1585
01:24:09,857 --> 01:24:12,943
an overwhelming
reaction to a criminal case.

1586
01:24:13,027 --> 01:24:15,362
[Vandemoer] Walked outside,
which wasn't a good idea.

1587
01:24:15,446 --> 01:24:18,783
There was cameras in my face,
questions being blurted out.

1588
01:24:18,866 --> 01:24:21,994
-[reporter] What made you plead guilty?
-[Vandemoer] It was overwhelming.

1589
01:24:22,078 --> 01:24:23,037
It was a mob scene.

1590
01:24:23,120 --> 01:24:26,248
[Vandemoer] You're not allowed
to have your cell phone in the courthouse.

1591
01:24:26,332 --> 01:24:30,086
I checked my phone, and I have an email
from Stanford telling me I'm fired.

1592
01:24:30,169 --> 01:24:33,255
I didn't have a paycheck anymore,
or health insurance.

1593
01:24:33,339 --> 01:24:36,550
Most importantly, my kids' daycare,

1594
01:24:36,634 --> 01:24:39,720
the roof over our head,
was on the Stanford campus.

1595
01:24:39,804 --> 01:24:41,889
The same school that was my victim.

1596
01:24:41,972 --> 01:24:45,142
[man] Any message to your former athletes?
They looked up to you.

1597
01:24:45,226 --> 01:24:48,562
[Vandemoer] I also made the mistake
leaving my social media on,

1598
01:24:48,646 --> 01:24:50,815
and it's just… hate.

1599
01:24:50,898 --> 01:24:53,067
I got a couple death threats on the phone.

1600
01:24:53,150 --> 01:24:55,152
Anonymous folks sending messages

1601
01:24:55,236 --> 01:24:58,405
that they were upset
at what they thought he did.

1602
01:24:58,489 --> 01:25:02,159
I was the "worst fat fuck"
that they've ever seen in their life.

1603
01:25:02,243 --> 01:25:04,286
"How did I ever fit
in a frickin' sailboat?

1604
01:25:04,370 --> 01:25:06,205
How could I do this to Stanford?

1605
01:25:06,288 --> 01:25:08,415
I should just fucking die and go away."

1606
01:25:08,499 --> 01:25:11,794
The week that it broke,
we got a call from a Chinese guy

1607
01:25:11,877 --> 01:25:14,880
who wanted to pay
$10 million to get into Harvard.

1608
01:25:14,964 --> 01:25:17,967
[chuckling] I was like,
"Man, have you read the news?" Like…

1609
01:25:18,050 --> 01:25:20,219
This is the worst week to make this call.

1610
01:25:20,302 --> 01:25:25,599
When the story broke,
I was getting ready to go into a meeting,

1611
01:25:25,683 --> 01:25:28,310
and I got a call
from a friend of mine, and he says,

1612
01:25:28,394 --> 01:25:34,191
"Hey, who's the guy you worked for
at the getting-into-college company?"

1613
01:25:34,275 --> 01:25:35,901
I said, "Rick Singer. Why?"

1614
01:25:35,985 --> 01:25:38,195
He says, "You gotta be kidding."
I said, "No, why?"

1615
01:25:39,029 --> 01:25:43,242
"Turn on the news. Go on Facebook.
Go on Instagram. Whatever."

1616
01:25:43,325 --> 01:25:46,579
[chuckling] "Just open up your phone
and look."

1617
01:25:47,872 --> 01:25:50,958
And I couldn't believe it.

1618
01:25:55,963 --> 01:25:59,049
There's a videotape
of Rick just walking solemnly

1619
01:25:59,133 --> 01:26:02,469
with all these reporters,
and not looking at anyone,

1620
01:26:02,553 --> 01:26:03,470
and my…

1621
01:26:04,180 --> 01:26:07,057
My heart just sank. It just sank.

1622
01:26:07,766 --> 01:26:09,977
[Vandemoer] Finally,
it was time for me to go in.

1623
01:26:10,060 --> 01:26:11,520
It's my time to be sentenced.

1624
01:26:12,313 --> 01:26:13,731
Rick was still in there.

1625
01:26:13,814 --> 01:26:17,484
We literally
have to cross each other right away.

1626
01:26:17,568 --> 01:26:21,197
Rick, of course, doesn't look
me in the eye or anything else.

1627
01:26:21,280 --> 01:26:22,114
It just, uh…

1628
01:26:22,990 --> 01:26:26,535
I'll never forget that moment
when we walked by each other like that.

1629
01:26:28,871 --> 01:26:30,206
My heart was pounding.

1630
01:26:30,289 --> 01:26:34,126
Um, sitting between my two lawyers
and the judge comes up

1631
01:26:34,210 --> 01:26:37,504
and "conspiracy racketeering"
is what I end up pleading guilty to.

1632
01:26:37,671 --> 01:26:40,424
[Fisher] Judge Zobel
understood that this was a guy

1633
01:26:40,507 --> 01:26:42,801
who really cared deeply about his students

1634
01:26:42,885 --> 01:26:45,137
and there was no need to send him to jail.

1635
01:26:45,804 --> 01:26:48,557
[Zobel] Mr. Vandemoer
is probably the least culpable

1636
01:26:48,641 --> 01:26:51,143
of all of the defendants
in this group of cases.

1637
01:26:51,227 --> 01:26:54,355
Certainly the parents
are in a different position.

1638
01:26:54,438 --> 01:26:57,233
The other coaches
benefitted for themselves.

1639
01:26:57,316 --> 01:26:59,068
He did not do that.

1640
01:26:59,151 --> 01:27:03,197
[Vandemoer] She gave me six months of home
confinement, two years of probation.

1641
01:27:03,280 --> 01:27:05,324
And I got a $10,000 fine.

1642
01:27:05,407 --> 01:27:08,369
I think, for John,
that was truly the right decision.

1643
01:27:08,953 --> 01:27:10,663
And he didn't have to serve time.

1644
01:27:10,746 --> 01:27:13,582
He's home with his kids.
He's bettering himself.

1645
01:27:13,666 --> 01:27:15,793
He's going back to school. He has a job.

1646
01:27:15,876 --> 01:27:19,630
He seems, when I talk to him,
that he's in a much, much better place.

1647
01:27:19,713 --> 01:27:22,299
I believe,
in Stanford's victim impact letter,

1648
01:27:22,383 --> 01:27:27,638
they said they're still in possession
of over $700,000 in donations.

1649
01:27:27,721 --> 01:27:30,432
Neither me or any associates
working for me at the firm

1650
01:27:30,516 --> 01:27:34,561
could find any case where
the victim of a racketeering conspiracy,

1651
01:27:34,645 --> 01:27:38,148
at the end of the conspiracy
ended up $770,000 richer

1652
01:27:38,232 --> 01:27:40,693
than they were
at the beginning of the conspiracy.

1653
01:27:45,781 --> 01:27:48,200
[Amott] Rick Singer is back in Sacramento.

1654
01:27:48,284 --> 01:27:51,245
He drives around town.
He's still in his athletic clothes.

1655
01:27:51,328 --> 01:27:52,955
He doesn't look any flashier.

1656
01:27:53,038 --> 01:27:56,333
He swims twice a day
at a local tennis club.

1657
01:27:56,417 --> 01:27:58,627
And he gets out of the pool in a Speedo,

1658
01:27:58,711 --> 01:28:00,921
does yoga, push-ups,
and he's on the phone.

1659
01:28:01,005 --> 01:28:02,756
Sometimes he has multiple phones.

1660
01:28:02,840 --> 01:28:06,593
My understanding, he's telling people
that he's not gonna go to jail

1661
01:28:06,677 --> 01:28:08,971
because they know the judge, etcetera.

1662
01:28:09,054 --> 01:28:12,099
Again, knowing Rick Singer,
you don't know what to believe.

1663
01:28:12,182 --> 01:28:15,602
You don't know if he believes it
or if it's an outright lie.

1664
01:28:15,686 --> 01:28:18,230
Um, you know,
he's plead guilty to four felonies.

1665
01:28:18,314 --> 01:28:21,608
I just have to believe
he's going to go to jail.

1666
01:28:22,568 --> 01:28:26,238
[man] Is the system broken?
Any comment on anything?

1667
01:28:27,698 --> 01:28:31,285
[Fry] There's a video
in which you see a guy with a mic

1668
01:28:31,368 --> 01:28:36,206
trying to get Rick Singer to answer
questions, and he just stonewalls them.

1669
01:28:38,042 --> 01:28:40,127
Can any good come out of this, Rick?

1670
01:28:40,627 --> 01:28:45,424
[Fry] He seems unperturbed
by these people trying to interview him.

1671
01:28:45,507 --> 01:28:49,345
It makes you wonder
about the levels of his regret.

1672
01:28:49,428 --> 01:28:54,183
He's a bit of a cipher
in his attitude about this whole affair.

1673
01:28:55,851 --> 01:28:58,520
You seem comfortable.
You're taking your time here.

1674
01:29:01,023 --> 01:29:03,776
Did you really work
with over 700 families?

1675
01:29:05,861 --> 01:29:07,529
Rick, is the system broken?

1676
01:29:12,868 --> 01:29:14,995
[reporter 1] Actress Lori Loughlin
of Full House

1677
01:29:15,079 --> 01:29:16,663
was sentenced to two months in prison.

1678
01:29:16,747 --> 01:29:18,707
[reporter 2] Her husband,
Mossimo Giannulli,

1679
01:29:18,791 --> 01:29:20,292
was sentenced to five months.

1680
01:29:20,376 --> 01:29:24,338
[reporter 3] Actress Felicity Huffman
received 14 days behind bars.

1681
01:29:24,421 --> 01:29:28,050
[Kalmus] No good will have come out
of these sentences or out of this scandal.

1682
01:29:28,133 --> 01:29:31,470
The fines they've been given, meaningless.

1683
01:29:31,553 --> 01:29:33,889
In terms of hitting them
in their pocketbook,

1684
01:29:33,972 --> 01:29:37,226
what a difference
it could have made if we hit them hard

1685
01:29:37,309 --> 01:29:40,687
and put that money
to work for underprivileged kids.

1686
01:29:41,188 --> 01:29:42,856
That would have been amazing.

1687
01:29:42,940 --> 01:29:45,943
Then you can say
at least some good came of it.

1688
01:29:46,026 --> 01:29:50,697
I try not to blame
the families or the parents.

1689
01:29:50,781 --> 01:29:54,410
I tend to focus
the criticism on the colleges

1690
01:29:54,493 --> 01:29:57,287
and universities that created this system.

1691
01:29:57,371 --> 01:29:59,331
If they didn't have these loopholes

1692
01:29:59,415 --> 01:30:02,292
and these preferences
for families of privilege,

1693
01:30:02,376 --> 01:30:05,671
then I don't think there would be
these kind of temptations.

1694
01:30:05,754 --> 01:30:10,676
This scandal is not necessarily a reason
for colleges to change their ways.

1695
01:30:10,759 --> 01:30:15,556
Because it makes the colleges seem
more exclusive and desirable than ever.

1696
01:30:15,639 --> 01:30:19,685
If all these rich people are willing
to go to these incredible lengths

1697
01:30:19,768 --> 01:30:23,397
and risk jail time just
to get their kids into these colleges,

1698
01:30:23,480 --> 01:30:26,483
then they must be extremely valuable.

1699
01:30:26,567 --> 01:30:30,279
What are we doing to these kids
by pounding them into the ground

1700
01:30:30,362 --> 01:30:33,866
with "top 25, top 10, top 5"?

1701
01:30:33,949 --> 01:30:36,702
Because ultimately,
where you do go to school

1702
01:30:36,785 --> 01:30:40,831
has little or no effect
on what will happen to you in the future.

1703
01:30:40,914 --> 01:30:44,168
The United States has over 3,000 colleges.

1704
01:30:44,251 --> 01:30:46,086
You have infinite choices.

1705
01:30:46,170 --> 01:30:47,379
Forget about USC.

1706
01:30:48,338 --> 01:30:50,090
Go someplace else.

1707
01:30:50,174 --> 01:30:54,219
You can get a great education
almost any place if you want it.

1708
01:30:54,803 --> 01:30:57,806
The parents
in this case didn't believe that.

1709
01:30:57,890 --> 01:31:00,350
Because the bigger school
had the prestige,

1710
01:31:00,434 --> 01:31:03,854
had the glitter,
had the glamour, had the bragging rights.

1711
01:31:04,938 --> 01:31:09,067
Why did these parents choose to cheat this

1712
01:31:09,151 --> 01:31:11,361
when their children had so much already?

1713
01:31:11,445 --> 01:31:15,491
Part of it seems to be
when you reach a certain level of wealth,

1714
01:31:15,574 --> 01:31:18,410
there's a relentless pursuit
of the trappings of power.

1715
01:31:18,494 --> 01:31:20,037
You wanna have the fancy car,

1716
01:31:20,120 --> 01:31:22,080
the fancy house,
whether you need it or not,

1717
01:31:22,164 --> 01:31:23,582
and it just seems to me

1718
01:31:23,665 --> 01:31:27,544
that the atmosphere
created in high-wealth societies

1719
01:31:28,045 --> 01:31:29,421
is part of the problem.

1720
01:31:30,255 --> 01:31:34,635
In America, we love the wealthy
and we hate the wealthy.

1721
01:31:34,718 --> 01:31:37,429
They disgust us and they fascinate us.

1722
01:31:37,513 --> 01:31:42,809
This story was a perfect
opportunity to see how rich people live

1723
01:31:42,893 --> 01:31:46,104
and the realities
of the system being exposed,

1724
01:31:46,188 --> 01:31:48,607
and so there's something
incredibly refreshing

1725
01:31:48,690 --> 01:31:53,403
to have just a little bit of justice
being served in a sea of injustice.

1726
01:34:00,030 --> 01:34:02,866
[Fisher] Rick will be living with this
for quite a while.

1727
01:34:03,533 --> 01:34:06,703
If he didn't cooperate,
he would have been charged,

1728
01:34:06,787 --> 01:34:08,080
maybe convicted already.

1729
01:34:08,163 --> 01:34:11,124
And right now he's out, a free man still.

1730
01:34:11,208 --> 01:34:15,212
And his cooperation won't be complete
until the very last person

1731
01:34:15,295 --> 01:34:17,339
charged in this conspiracy is sentenced,

1732
01:34:17,422 --> 01:34:20,175
and that is most likely
gonna be a while from now.

1733
01:34:42,864 --> 01:34:44,866
[moody piano music playing]