LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are among 48 people charged in a college exam cheating plot.
The scheme involved students attending or were trying to get into top colleges like Georgetown University, Stanford, and Yale. The $25 million college entrance exam cheating scheme centered on getting students entered into schools as recruited athletes, regardless of their athletic skills, and helping them cheat on their college exams, according to court documents unsealed in Boston today.
Loughlin is best known for her role on “Full House” and Huffman starred in “Desperate Housewives.” They were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud. The FBI recorded phone calls between the actresses and a cooperating witness, according to the criminal complaint.
Court records show the actresses and others allegedly paid as much as $6 million get their kids into various schools, according to TMZ.
Parents would pay the founder of the alleged scheme, William Rick Singer, between $15,000 and $75,000 per test for someone else to take the SAT or ACT exams in place of their children, according to court papers. Singer would advise students to seek “extended time on the exams, including by having their children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain medical documentation that ACT,” the indictment says.
Prosecutors said Singer would use the money to bribe two people to take the exams. In some cases, Singer’s associates created fake athletic “profiles” in an attempt to improve the students’ chances of getting accepted, according to prosecutors.
