Who is William 'Rick' Singer, the mastermind sentenced for US college admissions scandal?

Willian "Rick" Singer, known as the mastermind of the infamous US college admissions fraud, was given a three-and-a-half-year prison term on Wednesday. Whether it is SAT, the Scholastic Aptitude Test or ACT Exam, the American College Testing or even help with fake athletic credentials, Singer schemed in every way to help wealthy parents to get their kids into prestigious institutions. With involvement of these high-end schools, the whole scheme became the most notorious admissions corruption case in modern higher education.

These affluent youngsters benefited academically from their parents' easy use of their enormous riches and Singer was there all along to hold what is known as the "side door" wide open for them. These prestigious schools include Yale, Stanford, Georgetown colleges, and the University of Southern California.

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Singer's clients would pose to be recruited athletes in sports like tennis, pole vaulting, water polo, or soccer in order to receive preferential treatment when applying for admission in these schools. Additionally, they got phoney SAT or ACT scores from a test-fraud business.According to the prosecutors, bribes were used to grease the entire plan and were channelled via a fake charity.

Prison sentencing to Singer

The controversy emerged four years earlier and finally, the culprit has been brought to the books on Wednesday. US District Judge Rya W. Zobel sentenced Singer at the federal courtroom in Boston. Along with the 42-month punishment, Zobel also gave Singer a three-year supervised release period and a mandate to pay the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) more than $10 million in reparations. On February 27, he is supposed to report to jail.

“This is not a case [where] I could simply sentence you to probation or supervised release,” reported Washington Post quoting the judge telling Singer. “That has to do with the fact that it was such a large venture, such large amounts of money, and it lasted such an extraordinarily long period of time," the Judge added.

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In March 2019, Singer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Prosecutors say he was “involved in paying dozens upon dozens of bribes totaling millions of dollars.”

Singer pleaded guilty to conspiracy for money laundering, racketeering, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to defraud the United States in March 2019. He was engaged in paying dozens upon dozens of bribes worth millions of dollars, as per the prosecution.

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