all morning we have been telling you
about the largest case of college
admissions fraud in US history more than
50 people as we reported have been
charged across the country actresses
coaches at top-tier schools and many
more are facing mail and wire fraud
charges CEOs of companies
prosecutors say more charges could be on
the way former federal prosecutor Kurtis
fall Gators joining us to talk about
this scandal from the legal perspective
Chris thank you for joining us do
appreciate it so based on this
indictment 35 pages and going through it
you know obviously there's cheating here
morally wrong no question what makes
this illegal well it is a fraud case and
it's under the mail fraud statute which
the Supreme Court says you know it's the
broadest federal criminal statute on the
books and Supreme Court says that's as
broad as the human mind can imagine and
as you see here the imagination was
rather broad so it's in three parts the
fraud the first of course is cheating on
the exams which meant that mr. singer
who was the arts conspirator here had to
bribe folks at the test centers and paid
one gentleman ten thousand dollars per
test to take tests for some of its
students the second part was bribing
some of the coaches and administrators
at the schools to pretend that the kids
were athletes coming in on a scholarship
to help enhance their ability to get
admitted and then the third part was
sort of the tax fraud because the
parents who paid the money paid it
through what was called a charity and
that was a total fiction so there's tax
fraud involved so you got basic mail
fraud with the broadest of all criminal
statutes on the federal books and tax
fraud are the two components that got
the federal interest and because we know
that William singer who basically had
this consulting company and appeared to
have been at least according to the
indictment somewhat of the mastermind
behind all of this because he is clearly
cooperating since he pled guilty
yesterday when they unsealed the
indictment does that signal to you that
that this is a real strong case against
those 50 people who are charged very
strongly they actually filed over a 200
page affidavit reciting all the facts of
the case and what happened is because
singer was caught up the FBI had some
separate investigation that apparently
led to this and it led them to him he
then made undercover phone calls to a
large number of the parents pretended
that he was under auto-buy RS and got
them to talk about
the fraudulent payments and they also
got a court-ordered wiretap so they have
tape recorded conversations of a number
of people and so it makes it a very
powerful case for them
well it's interesting too because with
singer cooperating as it sounds that it
is then it will be interesting to see
what happens next then in terms of this
broader form and you're experiencing
these kinds of cases do they typically
then lead to more charges as have been
intimated my guess is probably so I mean
you know fifties camera now it's a round
number but they suggest that they've got
other folks under investigation and
obviously there's a network here there's
eight hundred parents how did they find
out about it all wealthy folks it's all
likely that one parent told another and
so there's kind of a network of people
they'll require those folks to cooperate
and it could result in other
prosecutions and and it's interesting
because you as you mentioned that
Williams singer basically I guess FBI
got you know led to him based on a
different investigation that happens a
lot doesn't it you know you find that
these things have legs a little bit like
we've what we've been hearing with a
robert muller investigation sure and of
course as we know there were prior FBI
investigations of some of the payoffs
for nike for example making payoff to
the basketball players and so they the
FBI was kind of looking to some of that
college bribery activity this might have
been how its sprung from that but we
don't know exactly but we know there was
a separate investigation that led to
this so in terms of the parents then you
know assuming that they don't have any
priors i'm you know is this something
that could put them in jail like they'll
see actual jail
you know sentences or you need more
probation yeah it could become a
difficult case as it carries a twenty or
maximum penalty but you know you look at
a federal sentencing guidelines and then
you figure out what's the loss well the
school got the tuition they didn't lose
any money
the coaches made money so sometimes
there's a measure on what the bribe was
those are some pretty big bribes one of
the coaches got four hundred thousand
I'm sure one parent page six and a half
so if you measure from that then they're
definitely looking at prison time if you
look at the loss to school which there
was none they may get probation yeah and
it'll be very interesting to see if this
is about also sending an example to
others so that it doesn't happen again
so we will continue to follow this is
just the beginning of this Curtis ball
getter thank you for being here -
appreciate it