Ex-UCLA soccer coach admits to taking $200K in bribes admissions scandal
A dilapidated UCLA males’s soccer coach on Monday admitted to accepting $200,000 in bribes as part of a college admissions cheating plot, federal prosecutors mentioned.
Jorge Salcedo, 47, who resigned from the College of California, Los Angeles in March 2019, pleaded responsible to one depend of conspiracy to commit racketeering, the U.S. Licensed legit’s Bother of labor for the District of Massachusetts mentioned in a assertion.
He used to be accused of accepting the bribes to abet fetch two students admitted to UCLA as purported soccer recruits, which used to be part of a plot orchestrated by William “Rick” Singer.
With one pupil, Salcedo created a unsuitable backstory as to how he discovered of a pair’s daughter by a membership crew coach, prosecutors mentioned.
In every other instance, he falsely claimed to comprise seen the son of every other of Singer’s purchasers compete in China, when genuinely the son did no longer play competitively. That pupil used to be also admitted as a pupil-athlete.
An emailed ask for comment from an attorney listed as representing him used to be no longer at the moment returned Monday evening.
Salcedo agreed to plead responsible in April, prosecutors mentioned.
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In step with the plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend a sentence of incarceration at the low slay of sentencing guidelines; one one year of supervised liberate; a beautiful and restitution; and the forfeiture of $200,000.
The acceptance of the plea deal has been prolong till sentencing, which is scheduled for Nov. 24, the U.S. attorney’s place of work mentioned.
As properly as to Singer, Salcedo worked with Ali Khosroshahin, the dilapidated head of females’s soccer at the College of Southern California, prosecutors mentioned.
She pleaded responsible in late June 2019, and sentencing has no longer yet been scheduled. Prosecutors narrate she is cooperating with the investigation.
The college admissions plot, by which of us paid tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to abet fetch their formative years into universities, came crashing down in March 2019 when 50 of us had been charged.
The FBI investigation used to be called “Operation Varsity Blues.” The plot fervent cheating on standardized exams and bribing coaches to designate the younger of us fraudulently as athletic recruits, authorities comprise mentioned.
Singer, the mastermind of the plot, has pleaded responsible and wore a wire for the FBI right by the investigation.
The of us of the students in the 2 cases for which Salcedo pleaded responsible comprise also pleaded responsible.
Davina and Bruce Isackson, the of us of the feminine purported soccer recruit, pleaded responsible in Would possibly presumably well well also 2019 and are cooperating in the investigation, in accordance to prosecutors. Sentencing has no longer yet occurred.
The mummy of the male pupil, Xiaoning Sui, used to be sentenced in Would possibly presumably well well also to time served, which portions to about 5 months, and likewise ordered to pay a $250,000 gorgeous.
Among these charged as part of the total plot had been actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. Loughlin’s fashion-designer husband Mossimo Giannulli used to be also charged.
Huffman pleaded responsible in Would possibly presumably well well also 2019 and served 11 days of a 14-day sentence.
Loughlin and Giannulli pleaded responsible in Would possibly presumably well well also but comprise no longer yet been sentenced. They’re scheduled to be sentenced next month.
