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Warning for students and additional arrests on college campuses

Warning for Students and Additional Arrests on College Campuses
Warning for Students and Additional Arrests on College Campuses
The University of Southern California, where three coaches and the senior associate athletic director were charged with taking bribes, said it would reject any current applicants who are connected to the bribery scheme.
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BOSTON — Two of the colleges caught up in a sweeping admissions fraud investigation said Wednesday they were considering disciplining students who were connected to the scheme. And the fallout from the case was just beginning.

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The University of California, Los Angeles, where the former men’s soccer coach is accused of taking $200,000 in bribes to help two students gain admission, warned Wednesday it might punish students whose applications contained misrepresentations, including by revoking their admission.

The University of Southern California, where three coaches and the senior associate athletic director were charged with taking bribes, said it would reject any current applicants who are connected to the bribery scheme.

Wanda Austin, the school’s interim president, also said current students whose parents have been charged with paying the bribes would also be investigated.

While prosecutors have charged 33 wealthy parents, they have not charged any students. Andrew E. Lelling, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, described parents as “the prime movers of this fraud.”

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Also Wednesday, several of the parents who were charged in the case appeared or were expected to appear in court.

Actress Lori Loughlin surrendered to FBI agents in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, a spokeswoman for the agency said. Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to get their two daughters accepted as recruits for the rowing team at USC, even though neither took part in the sport.

She agreed to post $1 million bond secured by her home.

Other prominent parents were placed on leave from their employers or stepped down from other posts.

Gordon Caplan, a co-chairman of global law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who is accused of paying $75,000 to have someone correct his daughter’s answers on the ACT exam, was put on leave by his firm Wednesday.

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William E. McGlashan Jr., a partner at private equity firm TPG, was also placed on leave Tuesday by his company. On Wednesday, he stepped down from the board of STX Entertainment, the film studio that he helped found with producer Robert Simonds.

Also Wednesday, the University of Texas at Austin announced it had fired its men’s tennis coach, Michael Center, who was charged with taking a bribe of $100,000 from Singer in 2015 in exchange for recruiting a student who was not a competitive tennis player.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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