Did the Loughlins not pay Singer to have Olivia Jade’s test answers altered?
@Scipio “Why else would he do it if not for the hope/promise of a significantly reduced sentence?”
So he got a lighter sentence based on whether he could encourage more parents to use his cheating services?
This seems like a drug dealer who gets a lighter sentence if he can push more teenagers into trying his new marijuana product, so the feds can arrest the teenagers. I really think something is wrong with that.
To me, the question is this: Did these parents want to cheat and go looking for a college counselor who they were told would do anything they wanted – including illegal actions - to get their kid into college? In that case, throw the book at them.
Or, did the parents hire a college counseling service that was highly recommended by all kinds of prominent people, and were they stupid enough to do what Singer told them was the way he always did it for his clients and is that the reason they cheated?
I happen to think there is a difference. Both are wrong, but that doesn’t mean there are not degrees of understanding who is the primary instigator. When the primary instigator gets off lightly and the person they talked into committing a crime gets the harshest sentence, I don’t believe justice is served. But I certainly understand if people have different opinions.
On fines vs jail. These people are, mostly, super wealthy. What kind of fine do you think would even start hurting them? Likely nothing that can be justified in law. Plus, as said, other fraudsters get sent to prison. Just a fine will do nothing but make people think, oh the rich can just buy their way out of this again.
“The parents broke the law just like drug addicts break the law. But there is absolutely no evidence that they would have broken that law without the guy that Phil Mickelson himself vouched for as terrific egging them on to cheat.”
Hardly a ‘Purdue-PhilMa’ situation here. And that’s a whole other issue from my cultural standpoint.
In saying the parents initiated the scheme I am not saying, and you surely cannot believe I am saying, that they originated the scheme, but that they initiated their family’s (their child’s) involvement in the scheme.
If they got the spiel about “exploiting a side door” from Singer (Not every parent had contact with Singer, as I understand it, such as was reported about Tobin in the piece linked here yesterday), and followed that line down the road of ‘make this deposit/make this donation/test at this place because I’ll have my people there to provide answers, or, I’ll submit my guy’s test instead of your student’s test…’ and told themselves their hands were clean the entire time until the Feds knocked on the door, then I can see how you may think they were taken.
In such a scenario, they were taking no cues from the meetings in the proverbial dark alley, and didn’t think anything off about the guy at the card table in the middle of the busy street shuffling walnut shells, with promises of an instant pay-off if they could tell him under which shell the chip lay.
But they were taking cues, all the right cues, every time. And they did get hooked, and some went back for more.
But they placed that needle into their own arms.
@roycroftmom: “Well, the kids must have wanted to attend these universities, which were out of their league. The parents would not have done it if the kid said no way to USC.”
Lately I’ve been getting lost when I search the site, but two things to your point.
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I do believe that some of the kids must have wanted what they wanted, and agreed to go along with the parents. But I have seen and heard nothing which makes me believe that the kids took the scheme, the machinations, the deceitful play, to the parents and said, “Hey Mom, Dad - Janie’s parents are doing this to get her into XYZ School. You just have to do that for me!”
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Somewhere in all of the reports and speculation of whether- and which- child knew what regarding parental behavior, there was a report of a student who told his parents ‘Thanks, but no thanks’.
So, yes, there are kids who may have wanted to be accepted to the schools to which their parents finagled, cut deals, lied, and stole (this is a charge on the table, yes?) admittance through this dance with the devil. I don’t hold the kids blameless where they are not. I just think the parents carry the greater part of that burden.
This case is everything we all can agree are bad. Elitism. Unbridled ego and personal greed. Ambtion and social climbing/standing at the expense of others.
Yeah, I can really see how those super elite and ambitious drug addicts are an apt analogy.
Folks. For the vast majority of people with a substance abuse disorder, it is simply a disease. Generally, significant underlying conditions that are temporarily relieved by said drug including alcohol. This self medicating in some percentage of humans with a hyper sensitivity to the relief, can lead to misery, death or institutions, despite their best efforts.
If you don’t have it. It’s tough to understand. Which is ok. Just have a little empathy. They’re not all fun seeking recreational drug and alcohol users.
Can we not denigrate them by comparing these unfortunates, for the most part, to this group of overindulged and ego centric individuals.
“Folks. For the vast majority of people with a substance abuse disorder it is simply a disease. Generally, significant underlying conditions that are temporarily relieved by said drug including alcohol. This self medicating in some percentage of humans with a hyper sensitivity to the relief, can lead to misery, death or institutions, despite their best efforts.”
I am not totally unsympathetic to what you have delineated here, privatebanker. The politics of the compassion do rile me at times.
“Can we not denigrate them by comparing these unfortunates, for the most part, to this group of overindulged and ego centric individuals.”
No further comparisons, intimated or otherwise.
I don’t agree with how your characterized my comment – but maybe it’s my fault, so let me try to make it more clear.
Forget the analogy of the drug dealer pushing a new product.
Imagine if the feds catch some guy - let’s call him Al - who has been embezzling and stealing. In order to get a lighter sentence, the police let Al arrange to leave a safe open in the company and Al goes up to some hapless late night worker in the company and says “hey, look, there’s all this cash in the safe and I and lots of other people at this company have been taking some for years and no one has ever noticed, you should really take some, too. Just think you can buy your kid that present he keeps asking for.” The hapless fool who works there thinks “well, since everyone is doing it, why shouldn’t I?”. That guy is guilty, no doubt. He should not have taken any money from the safe and he broke the law. But it seems quite wrong that the guy who has been stealing for years and is the real criminal gets a light sentence and the guy who committed a crime ONLY because Al talked him into it and he wouldn’t have committed that crime had he never met Al, gets the book thrown at him. I don’t think that is justice. The worst criminal is getting the lightest sentence and the people he conned and convinced to break the law get the harshest.
@observer12 I hadn’t read your comment in any way. I was seeing the comments starting to turn towards terms like sticking needles in ones arm and drug addicts. Etc .
As far as I am concerned, drug dealers can and should go to jail. Especially fetnyl pushers.
I’m sorry, I was the one who made the drug dealer analogy so I thought you were referring to my comment. I should have chosen a different analogy as you made an excellent point about substance abuse being a disease and I had not intended to minimize substance abuse by using that analogy. That’s why I’m dropping that analogy (and apologizing) and trying to clarify my point above.
@observer12 No apologies necessary. I’m not the posting czar. Lol. I just think these parents, though not ax murderers , are pompous and entitled
Most drug addicts are pretty sad cases. And many with cooccurring illnesses .
But i digress. Back to the regularly scheduled thread!
@bearpanther Speaking of taking a long time to get back to someone… thanks!
I think he found a really good vehicle for a gift, actually. They’d be more likely to be found violating the Fair Housing Act depending on the rules of the state they’re in, and how the sale proceeded.
If you aren’t allowed to sell overpriced houses I have some people in Seattle that the IRS needs to be talking to because I tell you what, some people moving up from California are getting fleeced…
At #3710: At first I read “…not tax murderers…” and then saw the conversation at #3712 , and thought “how apropos.”
Ha, I absolutely agree that they are pompous and entitled. That’s what made them the perfect targets for Singer. Did he cheat for everyone? Or was he really good at identifying who to approach?
I find it hard to believe that Singer didn’t offer this service to others who turned him down but never said a word. No wonder he got away with it for so long. I guess he’d still be doing it if one of the dad’s didn’t get caught doing something else illegal.
@MmeZeeZee Overpaying for a house you live in - in an overhyped market – is very different than having a guy you are in a position to do an unethical favor for purchasing your house at 80% more than market value so it sits around empty until he unloads it for a huge loss.
I am finally happy that my four year varsity rower has decided NOT to apply as an athletic recruit, LOL
Singer had a lot of clients who didn’t cheat on the SAT and didn’t use the side door to get in as an athletic recruits. Phil Mickelson’s daughter used Singer’s firm for help with her application and essays. Joe Montana’s kids also used the service. I’m sure there were many who didn’t need to cheat but still benefited from a little polish.
It is not plausible that the students knew nothing. It is much more likely that the parents are saying this to protect their children. We already know that these parents will lie very elaborately to help their children.
Fake sports pictures were staged with some students. Others went to a psychologist to get a certification for very severe learning disability (severe enough for 100% time) that had not been discovered until 10th or 11th grade. Then they flew to a distant city for a private sitting of the exam and their scores went up. Even if they didn’t know that their answer sheets had been corrected, they must have known that the learning disability certification was fake.
I would like to hear the explanation of Felicity Huffman’s child for the psychological testing, the certification of severe learning disability, and 100% extra time.
Each student is responsible for the truthfulness of the information in his or her college application.
Waiting2exhale, I think I find myself agreeing with you, in chunks. Maybe not each specific, but the way you’re trying to intellectually parse.
Stupid is as stupid does. Eventually, all of us get to the principle in law that ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse.’
What this boils down to, for me, is not “oh that pusher on the corner,” if only they hadn’t run into him. But rather, the gross selfishness of all involved, the desire of these parents to “get ahead,” without regard for process and ethics. Just their own wants. And greased by their understanding that they can manipulate.
I have a hard time when the talk turns to the big bad colleges, as if that exonerates the individuals. They came into this with their drives. They weren’t just innocents who fell for this. They came into it
As for Singer and whom the govt is pursuing, the intent and how, I can’t help but see the hand of the legal artiste in Huffman’s statement. She didnt write it. I doubt she has the intellectual capability. Or has suddenly gone through some cataclysmic ethics awakening. I think she’s just trying to cover her butt and her kid’s.
I think the govt’s position is not about jail time, per se, (or the size of a fine.) but the magnitude of the ethics problem, in the first place. The rico-like implications. A major warning. Not a one-time court case (or string of them.) I don’t think we should limit ourselves to what-ifs about Huffman. The whole matters.