Singer came to Sacramento to coach basketball shortly after graduating from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, in 1986.
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He and his wife, actress Lori Laughlin, pled guilty in 2020 to one count of wire and mail fraud in connection with paying Singer and his charity Key Worldwide Foundation $500,000 to falsely designate their daughters, Olivia Jade Giannulli, 20, and Isabella Rose Giannulli, 21, as recruits to the University of Southern California crew team, although neither had ever played the sport. Most recently, Mossimo Giannulli, 57, ended his five-month federal prison sentence in April. The scandal continues to generate headlines as celebrities begin and end jail sentences for crimes connected to cheating to get their kids into college. But his legal troubles are not behind him. Singer remains free, and has been spotted in recent months swimming at Rio Del Oro Sports Club and in the area near his Arden Park home. Since last August, the scandal has also been the source of two books, which include interviews with former Rio students and counselors. Various FBI wire-taps were not only critical in catching Singer and his super-rich clients in his illegal practices, but provided the foundation for the Netflix film “Operation Varsity Blues” released in March.
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Singer pled guilty to racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of justice in March 2019. “We used to just tear our hair out talking about him, and there was nothing we could do,” Sacramento educational consultant Margaret “Margie” Amott recalled in a recent interview with the Mirada. Rick Singer, the disgraced independent college counselor at the heart of the nation’s biggest admissions bribery scandal and subject of the new Netflix documentary “Operation Varsity Blues,” began his career in the 1990s working with students from Rio Americano and other top Sacramento high schools.Įven before he turned to the elaborate multi-million-dollar bribery scheme that would get rich-but-unqualified students into top universities through what he termed “the side door,” there was something about Singer in the 1990s and early 2000s that raised suspicion and frustration of local parents, high school counselors and private college-admissions coaches.