Introduction Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin are only a few of the actors whose careers have been unfortunately overshadowed by a cheating scandal. This article will show you that cheating is no joke, based on the experiences of those embroiled in the highest profile cheating scandal in recent years.

The Hollywood Cheating Scandal had less of an impact on academia than you might think, though. As newsworthy as these stories are, and how the scandal was broke, the involvement of high-profile actors from Hollywood only revealed what had ostensibly been going on for years among the general public.

In addition to explaining the details of the cheating—what it entailed and how it was carried out—this article will analyze some of the causes and effects of the cheating scandal. If you have been curious about the Hollywood Cheating Scandal and want to learn more, you have come to the right place.

The information in this article will help you draw your own conclusions about the cheating scandal instead of relying only on what you have heard from other people. You will learn about the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of the scandal.

The FBI’s official name for the investigation into the cheating scandal is Operation Varsity Blues.

Who: The Accused

About 50 people have been indicted so far. Of those, around 30 are parents with the remainder consisting of the people accused of racketeering: organizing and managing the cheating business.

* Felicity Huffman. Felicity Huffman is an Academy Award-nominated actor but is now known even more for being charged with felony crimes including conspiracy to commit fraud. She is one of the stars of the television show Desperate Housewives. 

* Lori Loughlin. Another high-profile actor charged with felony crimes in relation to the Hollywood Cheating Scandal is Lori Loughlin. Loughlin is known for her role as Aunt Becky on the television show Full House. 

* J. Mossimo Giannulli. Lori Loughlin is married to celebrity fashion designer J. Mossimo Giannulli, who faces the same charges as his wife. Mossimo’s line of clothes bears his name and had been distributed by Target stores since the year 2000, only a few years after the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Giannulli sold the Mossimo company in 2006.     

* William Rick Singer. Hardly a household name, Singer is the alleged mastermind behind the Hollywood cheating scandal and ran a lucrative business targeting wealthy parents. Singer styles himself an “admissions consultant,” and founded a non-profit company called The Key. The Key billed itself as being a standard college preparatory service. Singer had long made a name for himself in the business and wrote a book about how to get into college called Getting In: Gaining Admission to Your College of Choice. 

* Mark Riddell. Ex-tennis pro Riddell worked in college prep at a private school in Florida and has been accused mainly of taking tests for students using a fake ID, sneaking the students the answers to the tests, or even manipulating the results of the tests.

* Olivia Jade Giannulli, daughter of Lori Laughlin and Mossimo Guannuli, has not been accused of a crime. However, she is a social media influencer who proudly proclaimed to her followers on YouTube, “I do want the experience of like game days, partying… I don't really care about school, as you guys all know.” 

Naturally, Singer faces the most charges and the most serious ones including obstruction of justice, conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering, racketeering, and several different counts of conspiracy. If convicted, Singer could face up to 60 years in prison and over a million dollars in fines.

Who: Law Enforcement

Some 200 federal agents were involved in building the case, mainly overseen by the FBI. The investigation apparently took only 10 months to research.

United States federal attorney Andrew E. Lelling is credited for officially laying charges in the Hollywood cheating scandal.

What

The parents have been allegedly spending as much as $6 million to...

Through The Key, Singer would process the bribes by calling them charitable donations to the non-profit, which claimed to help at-risk and disadvantaged youth from around the world.
Wealthy parents paid Singer, who washed the money through The Key, and then paid off numerable persons in the form of bribes.

Where

The Hollywood cheating scandal might have involved several Hollywood actors but it spans six states, which is one of the reasons why the case is under federal jurisdiction.

In fact, Singer’s “non-profit” organization The Key operated in five countries in addition to the United States and had branches in over 80 American cities.

Many of the charges have been filed in a Massachusetts District Court.

When

The charges were filed on March 12, 2019. However, the FBI claims that Singer had started the admissions racketeering as early as 2011.

Why

Each person involved in the Hollywood cheating scandal has a slightly different motivation. 

Parents may be motivated by a sense of entitlement, by a belief that even though their children did not make good enough grades to get into top colleges that they deserved to be there anyway.

Singer, the school coaches, SAT proctors, and others on the business side of things were motivated more by money.      

How

According to the FBI, Singer went to unbelievable distances to fulfill his clients’ desires including photoshopping images to make the students look like athletes so that they could get a sports scholarship.

While there are many legitimate college prep companies that actually do help students get into college, Singer and The Key were apparently going an extra step by making substantial bribes to college coaches. Additionally, Singer is accused of bribing the moderators of the important standardized tests or admissions examinations like the ACT and the SAT. 

Singer had established himself as one of the nation’s foremost admissions consultants and even started his own online high school called the University of Miami Online High School. The University of Miami Online High School proved so successful that it was purchased by college prep behemoth Kaplan. While the University of Miami Online High School was in Singer’s hands, about 18,000 clients paid $15,000 each to attend.

Each of the accused parents in the Hollywood cheating scandal apparently used different means to ensure their sons and daughters got into college.

Using Singer’s advice, parents like Felicity Huffman paid about $15,000 for services like forging SAT scores or receiving fake diagnoses for learning disabilities in order to buy time to take the exam. 

Singer would take the money the parents paid, and use it to pay people like SAT proctors.      

The coaches in top schools like Yale were also involved by actively agreeing to pretend a student was a member of a sports team.

Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli face potentially more serious fines given they have been accused of paying Singer as much as $500,000. In their case, Loughlin and Giannulli paid bribes to USC athletic coaches, asking the coaches to claim the kids were on the sports team even when they were not. In fact, the coach allegedly agreed to name Loughlin’s daughter as the Los Angeles Marine Club rowing crew coxswain.

As far as how the FBI first got word of the scandal, apparently investigators were working on an entirely different case related…