Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin Among Dozens Charged in U.S. College Admissions Scam

Corruption is Everywhere - Even in America's Best University Admissions

Federal prosecutors charged William Singer with running racketeering scheme

Thomson Reuters ·

Federal prosecutors in Boston have charged William Singer with running the $25-million US racketeering scheme,

which served a roster of clients, including Hollywood actors such as Felicity Huffman.

(Peter Kramer/Getty Images) I'm guessing this photo was taken before #MeToo

Hollywood actors Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) and Lori Loughlin (Full House/Fuller House) were among 50 people charged by U.S. federal prosecutors on Tuesday in a $25-million US scheme to help wealthy Americans cheat their children's way into elite universities such as Yale and Stanford.

Federal prosecutors in Boston charged William (Rick) Singer, 58, with running the racketeering scheme through his Edge College & Career Network, which served a roster of clients, including CEOs and Hollywood actors.

Prosecutors said Singer's operation arranged for fake testers to take college admissions exams in place of his clients' children, and also bribed coaches to give admissions slots meant to be reserved for recruited athletes, even if the applicants had no athletic ability.

Parents paid tens of thousands of dollars for Singer's services, which were masked as charitable contributions, prosecutors said.

Philanthropist David Sidoo accused of paying $200K to help sons pass U.S. college entrance exams

Singer is scheduled to plead guilty on Tuesday in Boston federal court to charges, including racketeering, money laundering and obstruction of justice, according to court papers. He could not be reached for immediate comment.

Thirty-three parents, including actor Lori Loughlin, were charged, as well as 13 coaches and associates of Singer's business. (Danny Moloshok/Reuters)

Some 33 parents, including Huffman and Loughlin, were charged, as well as 13 coaches and associates of Singer's business. Huffman and Loughlin were not immediately available for comment.

On a call with one parent, prosecutors said Singer summed up his business thusly: "What we do is help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school … my families want a guarantee."

The scheme began in 2011, prosecutors said, and also helped children get into the University of Texas, Georgetown University, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Part of the scheme involved advising parents to pretend to test administrators that their child had learning disabilities that allowed them extended time to take the exam.

The parents were then advised to choose one of two test centres that Singer's company said it had control over: one in Houston and the other in West Hollywood, Calif.

The test administrators in those centres took bribes to allow Singer's clients to cheat, often by arranging to have a student's wrong answers corrected after completing the exam, or having another person take the exam.

In many cases, the students were not aware that their parents had arranged for the cheating, prosecutors said.

Some of them are now!

John Vandemoor, a former Stanford sailing coach, is also scheduled to plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges.

SNC-Lavalin Paid for Gadhafi Son's Prostitutes While He Was in Canada

This story is a dramatic episode in the extraordinary political turmoil

happening in Canada this week.

See: The Other Mind-Blowing Testimony Today - Justin Trudeau is in Deep Trouble for a quick summary of these remarkable events.

Receipts show $30,000 in payments to Saadi Gadhafi

for sexual services in Canada in 2008

Corruption is Everywhere - Even in Canada

In this Tuesday, July 3, 2001 file photo, Saadi Gadhafi, son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi,

smiles during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo.

AP Photo/Tsugufumi Matsumoto

Marie-Danielle Smith, National Post

OTTAWA — New details have emerged about Quebec engineering giant SNC-Lavalin’s cozy relationship with the son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, including the company allegedly hiring prostitutes for him during a visit to Canada a decade ago.

The sordid tale, revealed by Quebec newspaper La Presse Wednesday, comes to light as former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould testifies about whether she was unduly pressured last fall to help SNC-Lavalin avoid federal corruption charges associated with their business dealings in Libya.

Receipts gathered during an investigation of a former SNC-Lavalin executive show $30,000 in payments to Saadi Gadhafi for sexual services in Canada in 2008, La Presse reported. The documentation can now be revealed publicly because the prosecution of Stéphane Roy, former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin, on fraud and bribery charges was dropped last week due to court delays.

In 2008, Gadhafi was ostensibly travelling to Montreal and Toronto to conduct business and improve his English, at the invitation of SNC-Lavalin. He had helped the company secure billions in public contracts in Libya — thanks also to millions in bribes to Libyan officials, the RCMP has alleged — and visited Canada on three previous occasions. But he spent much of his time on other extracurricular pursuits, according to La Presse’s reporting.

For the duration of his stay, SNC-Lavalin hired Garda World, a Montreal-based company, to provide security for the dictator’s son, and they hired four bodyguards as contractors. That focus on security “degenerated,” a spokeswoman for the company, Isabelle Panelli, told the newspaper.

The bodyguards handled Gadhafi’s expenses and provided receipts to SNC-Lavalin, according to court testimony by an RCMP investigator. Transactions they wrote in as “companion services” in their expense reports would cost between $600 and $7,500 each. Close to $10,000 in services went to a single escort service in Vancouver. Other payments went to a Montreal strip club and covered events at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, such as box seats for a Spice Girls concert.

The SNC-Lavalin headquarters is seen in Montreal.

The investigation showed that SNC-Lavalin was writing off the expenses as associated with construction projects in Libya, La Presse reported, with the total bill for Gadhafi’s trip totalling nearly $2 million.

Roy had testified in court that expenses associated with the trip were justified, and that he had the receipts to prove it. The expenses were justified at the time, testified another former executive, Riadh Ben Aissa — who, meanwhile, pled guilty last year to a forgery charge associated with allegations that SNC-Lavalin executives defrauded the McGill University University Health Centre of $22.5 million in a bid-rigging scheme.

Panelli told La Presse that Garda World tried to intervene and stop the practice, but then lost the contract with SNC-Lavalin. She told the newspaper that most employees who were around then are no longer with the company.

Garda World told the National Post it had no comment to offer beyond the La Presse report, and a spokesman for SNC-Lavalin would only say: “We have no comment on this matter.”

The company has argued that its corporate culture is completely different now than it was a decade ago, and that its current senior executives were not involved in the alleged corruption.

SNC-Lavalin remains Canada’s biggest engineering firm, employing thousands of people across the country and particularly in Quebec. There, the provincial premier and much of the commentariat have argued that there would be good economic reasons for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ask an attorney general to help the company avoid criminal prosecution.

Good idea, as long as you don't have any integrity or expectation of corporate Canada actually following the law.

But then we should at least stop telling China that we are a nation of laws and there is no political interference in the judicial system. This is what Trudeau told China when Huawei's CFO was arrested, about the same time he was twisting our Attorney-General's are to intervene for SNC-Lavalin.

Brazil's President Michel Temer Charged with Taking Bribes

Corruption impoverishes the poor and engorges the rich. Brazil normally has a quarter of a million child prostitutes who would starve if they didn't prostitute themselves. Instead of dealing with the incredible poverty in the country, President after President of Brazil have given inflated contracts to those who bribe them. This increases taxes and the cost of living which increases the level of poverty and subsequently, the level of child prostitution in Brazil. 

Brazilian President Michel Temer reacts during a credentials presentation ceremony for several new

top diplomats at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil June 26, 2017. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Brad Brooks and Ricardo Brito | BRASILIA

Brazil's top federal prosecutor charged President Michel Temer with taking multimillion-dollar bribes on Monday in a stinging blow to the unpopular leader and to political stability in Latin America's largest country.

Rodrigo Janot submitted the charge in a document presented to the Supreme Court, saying "he fooled Brazilian citizens" and owed the nation millions in compensation for accepting bribes.

Under Brazilian law, the lower house of Congress must now vote on whether to allow the top tribunal to try the conservative leader, who replaced impeached leftist President Dilma Rousseff just over a year ago.

Lawmakers within Temer's coalition are confident they have the votes to block the two-third majority required to proceed with a trial. But they warn that support may wane if congressmen are forced to vote several times to protect Temer - whose popularity is languishing in the single-digits - from trial.

Temer's office and his attorney, Antonio Mariz, declined to comment on the charges. Temer has repeatedly said he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

Investigators have uncovered stunning levels of corruption in recent years engulfing Brazil's political class and business elites. Much of it centers on companies paying billions of dollars in bribes to politicians and executives at state-run enterprises in return for lucrative contracts.

Temer and one-third of his cabinet, as well as four former presidents and dozens of lawmakers are under investigation or already charged in the schemes. Over 90 people have been convicted.

Political analysts had warned, long before Monday, that the scandals reduced the chances Temer could push through reforms crucial for Latin America's biggest economy to rebound from its worst recession on record.

Temer was charged in connection with a graft scheme involving the world's largest meatpacker, JBS SA. Executives said in plea-bargain testimony the president took bribes for resolving tax matters, freeing up loans from state-run banks and other matters.

Monday's charging document alleges Temer arranged to eventually receive a total of 38 million reais ($11.5 million) from JBS in the next nine months.

Joesley Batista, one of the brothers who control JBS, recorded a conversation with Temer in March in which the president appears to condone bribing a potential witness. Batista also accused Temer and aides of negotiating millions of dollars in illegal donations for his Brazilian Democratic Movement Party.

Brazil's federal police released a separate document on Monday about that conversation with Batista. Police recovered a previously inaudible portion of the recording in which Temer is heard telling the scandal-plagued billionaire that it was mainly because of his influence that he chose to appoint Henrique Meirelles as finance minister.

The significance of the comment about Meirelles, who is widely respected in financial markets, was not immediately clear and the finance ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

LEGAL GRIDLOCK

Key lawmakers in Temer's alliance told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, they would halt work on proposed labor reforms if forced to vote on charges against the president.

Temer's supporters say they have between 250 and 300 votes in the 513 seat lower house to block a trial. But the president is expected to soon face charges of racketeering and obstruction of justice, each requiring a separate vote. Prosecutors have said they may also file other charges, which they have not yet given details on.

On Monday, the federal police recommended charging Temer with obstruction of justice - the first step toward a likely round of other charges in addition to graft.

Top lawmakers said Janot's expected strategy of presenting charges one at a time would throw Temer's future into uncertainty.

With all of congress facing re-election next year, many said that if public outrage boiled over, it would be hard to maintain support for Temer.

"If this grinds on with multiple votes, you may start to see a lack of governability," said one top lawmaker in Temer's coalition. "In that case, there will be defections, and colleagues may start to move against Temer."

Carlos Melo, a political scientist with Insper, a Sao Paulo business school, said Janot knew he would lose the first corruption charge against Temer "but he is like a chess player, thinking two or three votes down the line."

Melo said the votes by lawmakers, many of whom are facing their own corruption investigations, would be a test of how alienated Brazil's political class was from an increasingly angry population.

"If Congress has any connection left whatsoever with the society it represents, then Janot's strategy of wearing lawmakers down with multiple votes will win and you will see the president put on trial," Melo said.

If congressmen rally around Temer, Melo said, "then we must face the horrific fact that what we have is a political system entirely detached from society, and it will pay the price in next year's election."

(Additional reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Tom Brown)