Former Las Vegas Gaming Exec Among Those Accused in College Admission and Sports Scandal

By CASSANDRA COUSINEAU

LVSportsBiz.com

The FBI has indicted nine college coaches and a total of fifty individuals for participating in an alleged bribery scheme that has a Las Vegas angle. The list of wealthy parents wrapped up in the complaint includes actresses Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman — and two Las Vegas residents.

 

Dubbed Operation Varsity Blues, the scandal has the potential to change a whole lot more than entry scores. Federal prosecutors have accused Las Vegans Gamal Abdelaziz and Elisabeth Kimmel of being part of a scheme to fudge their children’s admissions to the University of Southern California and Georgetown.

 

Prosecutors say in court documents that Abdelaziz paid $300,000 to get his daughter into USC as a purported athletic recruit.

 

Abdelaziz , a former Wynn Resorts executive until 2016, is alleged to have conspired to bribe Donna Heinel, an associate athletic director at USC. The federal complaint cites Abdelaziz providing a fake basketball profile of his daughter, “which included exaggerated and altogether fabricated basketball credentials.”

 

Once his daughter was admitted, alleged payments were wired through a charity created by Singer’s company.

 

Here’s a USC statement posted via Twitter.

 

 

Kimmel, identified as the owner and president of a Midwest Television Inc, allegedly conspired to pay $275,000 to get her daughter admitted to Georgetown and $200,000 for her son to be admitted to USC as tennis and track recruits respectively.

 

From 2011 until just Tuesday, William “Rick” Singer operated what the website www.thekeyworldwide.comcalls a college counseling business, known as The Key. According to indictments filed Tuesday, the service allegedly helped uber wealthy clients bribe top colleges to get their children into school by either drumming up bogus standardized test scores, paying off SAT and ACT proxies to take exams, or creating fake athletic profiles for the prospective students.

 

The Key then bribed college coaches with large sums of money ranging from $200,000 to millions funneled through the school’s admissions department. In most cases, the student in question did not play a sport at all.

 

Singer allegedly exploited the admissions preference for athletes by turning mediocre high school students, through bribery, photos and video editing, into fake athletes.

 

Both Abdelaziz and Kimmel face charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.

 

USC has since fired Heinel.