Only if those who pleaded not guilty are convicted. If they are not guilty, they won’t get any fine or jail time.
from wikipedia
It doesn’t really matter what LL thought she was “donating to”
Mistake of fact is not the same legal principle as ignorance of the law.
I don’t know what is being claimed as a defense in this particular case, but a reasonable and good faith mistaken factual belief can indeed be a defense to a criminal charge, if such mistaken belief would render the conduct legal.
@3scoutsmom The “ignorance of the law” principle only is valid when the reason was “I din’t know that what I did was illegal”. If LL was claiming “I didn’t know that falsifying my daughter’s application, and paying an individual to make sure that nobody looked too closely at the application, was illegal”, the “Ignorance of the Law” principle would be valid. However, I think that LL is claiming “The actions I did were, from my perspective, legal, because I thought that my daughter was being accepted in return for a donation”. In that case, she’s not claiming ignorance of the law, but that the violation of the law was not on her part, but on the part of Singer.
If that is her defense in court, I think that she’s going to get convicted, since her complicity with the falsification of her daughter’s athletic record would indicate that she knew that her daughter was being accepted based on deliberate falsehoods. It also may hurt in sentencing, since, although the “ignorance of the law” principle cannot usually keep somebody from being convicted, it can get their sentence mitigated.
PS. In some cases, such as the laws not being properly posted or published, or in cases like tax law which is so complex that a reasonable person may be confused about certain laws, ignorance of the law may be a valid defense.
Another story relating to the scandal:
https://www.propublica.org/article/an-unseen-victim-of-the-college-admissions-scandal-the-high-school-tennis-champion-aced-out-by-a-billionaires-family
I read that a few days ago. Yes, people are affected by this. Didn’t read the whole thing but hope that kid gets onto a good team.
That story in ProPublica is a bit ironic. Cliff Notes version: wealthy, private school kid with every advantage and coaching out the wazoo works hard at a sport. His “place” on college sports team is taken by a wealthier school teammate who isn’t as talented at said sport but whose parents bribe the coach.
Instead of making a reader feel outraged that one deserving student lost his place at college due to the scandal, it’s a great explanation of how ridiculous the athletic preferences are in college admissions. Most of the issues raised in the scandal could be addressed by simply eliminating athletic preference. Heck, the athletes in this story don’t even play a sport that most college students ever watch or are even aware of - it’s not like the hackneyed arguments about school pride could even remotely apply here.
Not once does the article discuss the academic ability of either kid. There is no way to know from the article if either kid can actually read, much less a comparison of one’s academic potential compared to the other. In fact, the only two times academics are even touched on in the article are to state that both kids went to a private school that almost never gives grades of B or below and that the tennis coach at one of the colleges of interest flat out stated that the kid would probably not be able to major in what he was interested because there was too much academic work involved; so most of the players on his team majored in a single major that didn’t require much work or class time.
This is college. College should be primarily about education and to the extent other things fit in - great. But this article shows how far away from education college admissions has become. When 30% of top colleges’ admits are there due to athletic preference or the ability level of a player in a sport few even watch is more important than if the player can even handle the basic academic work… it’s time to recognize things have gone off the rails.
Except that is not what happened. Adam, the talented tennis player, only wanted to go to Cal Poly. He was good enough for that team but applied to the tennis coaches late and they’d already filled their team with equally talented or better players, including many international players. Other schools offered Adam a spot on their teams and some had scholarships, but he didn’t want those schools.
Adam wouldn’t and didn’t consider Georgetown, Adam, the high school coaches, and all the others at their very exclusive high school were surprised that the other kid (Garth?) got an offer from Georgetown (no athletic scholarship), but he did not ‘take Adam’s place’ because Adam never wanted to go to Georgetown.
Did Garth take someone else’s place at Georgetown? No. He may have taken their athletic admissions tip or slot and they had to get in on their own, but not their place at the school or even on the tennis team (since Garth never played on the G’town team). Unlike the other Varsity Blues applicants, Garth actually played his sport in high school but he was just bad at it. The G’town coach was given so many slots by the Athletic Director and he sold (some of) them. He still had to put together a tennis team and he did, but poor Garth wasn’t on i t.
Adam got into Cal Poly without any help, based just on his grades and scores.
Yes, excuse my misread. It was more of a wealthy, private school kid is jealous and apparently “aced out” by the other, wealthier, private school kid who gets to go to a better school even though his tennis game isn’t as strong.
Think the majority of students at Cal Poly or Georgetown can name even two of tennis players on their collegiate team? Are we really to believe that this is some sort of travesty or that it impacts the academics or student body one iota that one wealthy tennis player is on a team when another wealthy tennis player had a better tennis record?
Athletic preference has been referred to by some as really an affirmation action of a different kind. For example, see this article in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/harvard-university-and-scandal-sports-recruitment/599248/
Some have posted one kid’s teary question to a parent, didn’t you believe in me? Jeez, if I were Adam’s parents, I never would have let some journalist make a national case out of my son, his grief. Though he ends up determined to keep trying, too much is meant to tug our heartstrings. Feels humiliating.
And it’s nuts to think one kid took your place. 30 other kids probably feel the same and it’s only one spot. So my feeling is, another journalistic piece that serves the author. I did like the school and coach’s backstories, but am not a fan of Daniel Golden.
“His “place” on college sports team is taken by a wealthier school teammate who isn’t as talented at said sport but whose parents bribe the coach.”
Sure, but bribing the coach, the connection with Singer and the parents being charged for a crime are definitely not the “standard”, wealthy family gets their kids in via athletics, which happens all the time.
It looks like Grant’s family comes from serious wealth (his aunt co-owns a NBA team and arena), I don’t know why they didn’t use the legal back door of making a donation for a spot. Singer’s side door strategy was for parents who didn’t have that kind of wealth.
Not everyone who can afford to take that door chooses to do it.
Nobody took Adam’s spot at Georgetown because his ranking (3 stars) was not good enough to play at a mid-level D1 or even top D3 school. But the story makes for a dramatic read. When not selling spots away Georgetown coach was looking for 5 stars and high 4 stars recruits
Adam didn’t even consider Georgetown, looked like he wanted to say on the west coast, or at least close to his home in southern CA. Grant probably did take someone else’s spot though, but not Adam’s.
I am not sure if anyone has posted this. I may have missed it. Harvard took a while before firing the fencing coach.
https://www.wbur.org/edify/2019/07/09/peter-brand-jie-zhao-harvard-fencing-fired
Yup. It was posted 3 months ago when it happened.
So I was flipping around the channels Sat evening and saw something called College Admissions Scandal on Lifetime. I didn’t know if it was a documentary or what but apparently it’s a movie based on the scandal. I know what people are thinking, wouldn’t it have been great if it starred Lori Loughlin and Felicty Huffman, with cameos by William Macy.
Here’s the WaPo review:
It was a dramatization – typical Lifetime Movie — (fairly direct narrative story line, uninspired dialogue and terrible acting).
“This is being aired on CNN tonight (9pm EST): http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2019/10/02/cnns-fareed-zakaria-examines-elite-college-admissions-from-the-inside/. Should be interesting”
It’s premiering tomorrow (October 20th), and agree should be interesting.