Charges Against Another Parent Revealed in the College Admissions Scandal
Prosecutors said a Chinese woman living in Canada had paid $400,000 to bribe her son’s way into U.C.L.A., raising the total number of parents accused in the case to 35.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Prosecutors unsealed charges on Tuesday against a woman who they said had paid a consultant $400,000 to get her son admitted to the University of California, Los Angeles, as a recruit for the soccer team. The charges added another defendant to the Justice Department’s sprawling college admissions prosecution.
The woman, Xiaoning Sui, 48, was arrested by Spanish authorities on Monday night and was being held in Spain, according to the office of Andrew Lelling, the United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts. The office said it would seek her extradition to Boston to face the charges.
The charges against Ms. Sui bring the number of wealthy parents who have been charged in the fraudulent admissions scheme to 35, a group that includes the Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. Ms. Huffman pleaded guilty to a fraud charge and was sentenced on Friday to 14 days in prison; she will begin serving her sentence next month. Ms. Loughlin, who is charged with fraud and money laundering, has pleaded not guilty.
When Mr. Lelling first announced the case on March 12, a total of 50 people, including parents, college athletic coaches and others, were publicly accused of conspiring to pay or receive bribes, cheating on college entrance exams and passing students off as athletic recruits to ensure their admission to colleges.
Mr. Lelling said at the time that the investigation “remains active” and suggested that more people would be charged. But the investigation has appeared to move slowly since then, and Ms. Sui — a Chinese citizen residing in Canada — is only the second additional defendant to be named. Mr. Lelling’s office said the indictment unsealed on Tuesday had been returned by the grand jury in March.
At the center of the case is William Singer, an independent college admissions consultant whom prosecutors have described as the mastermind of the scheme. Mr. Singer has pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges and is cooperating with prosecutors.
The indictment against Ms. Sui says she conspired with Mr. Singer and a new person in the case, “Recruiter 1,” who is based in Sarasota, Fla., and owned and operated a service that matched high school tennis players with college coaches. It was not clear whether Recruiter 1 had connected Ms. Sui with Mr. Singer.
According to the indictment, Mr. Singer spoke to Recruiter 1 by phone in early August 2018, and listed the price it would cost to secure Ms. Sui’s son’s admission to various schools, including U.C.L.A., through bribery.
The next month, Ms. Sui sent Recruiter 1 photographs of her son playing tennis, which he forwarded to Mr. Singer, the indictment said. But Mr. Singer had apparently decided to portray Ms. Sui’s son as a soccer player, not a tennis player. He sent a fake soccer rĂ©sumĂ©, which included a picture of another person playing soccer, to Jorge Salcedo, the men’s soccer coach at U.C.L.A.
Mr. Salcedo designated Ms. Sui’s son as a recruit for his team, the indictment said, and the young man was admitted to U.C.L.A. as a soccer recruit in November 2018, with a 25 percent scholarship.
Mr. Salcedo has been charged with racketeering conspiracy and has pleaded not guilty.
In a conference call in late October 2018 with Mr. Singer, Ms. Sui, Recruiter 1 and a translator, Mr. Singer said he needed Ms. Sui to wire him $100,000, which would be paid to Mr. Salcedo, the indictment said, adding that Ms. Sui sent the money, followed by $300,000 more several months later. Mr. Singer paid Mr. Salcedo $100,000, the indictment says.
The charges against Ms. Sui deepen U.C.L.A.’s involvement in the college admissions case. A California couple has pleaded guilty to paying Mr. Singer $250,000 to secure their daughter’s admission to U.C.L.A. as a soccer recruit, even though she did not play soccer; prosecutors have said Mr. Singer paid Mr. Salcedo $100,000 for that student as well.
Last week, The Los Angeles Times reported that U.C.L.A. had missed a chance to stop Mr. Singer in 2014, when an internal investigation by the university found evidence that he was encouraging parents to donate money to the athletic department in order to get their students admitted as athletic recruits, and that in one case, he had offered to create a fake athletic profile for an applicant in a sport she did not play.
A spokesman for U.C.L.A., Tod Tamberg, said on Monday that when Mr. Singer was questioned in the course of that investigation, he denied telling parents that admission could be purchased with a financial contribution.
Asked about Ms. Sui’s son’s status, Mr. Tamberg said that federal law and university policy prevented him from commenting. But he said that in general, the university could revoke the admission of any student found to have lied on his or her application, and that the university was “not aware of any currently enrolled student-athletes who are under suspicion” by the Justice Department for possible admissions fraud.
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