New ‘Varsity Blues’ Class Action Alleges Unfair Application Process

A new class action lawsuit has been filed against William “Rick” Singer, his companies, and numerous universities embroiled in the “Varsity Blues” scandal by past university applicants and their parents who say they were cheated out of a fair application process.

The Varsity Blues class action lawsuit states, “Each of the universities took the students’ admission application fees while failing to take adequate steps to ensure that their admissions process was fair and free of fraud, bribery, cheating and dishonesty.”

The plaintiffs argue that they spent between $55 and $100 to apply to colleges such as UCLA, Stanford, and Yale and as part of their application and payment of fees, that they “reasonably believed she would receive fair consideration and a fair merit-based application process, based on the same criteria applied to all other applicants.”

“As a result of this coordinated, fraudulent scheme, conducted through wire and mail, unqualified students found their way into the admissions rolls of highly selective universities, while those students who played by the rules were denied admission,” the Varsity Blues class action lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs argue in their class action lawsuit that they were damaged by the behavior of the defendants by paying admission fees without knowing that other applications were breaking the law.

The Varsity Blues class action lawsuit argues, “Each of the rejected students was damaged by the fraudulent and negligent conduct of the Defendants in that, at a minimum, each Class member paid college admission application fees to the Defendant universities without any understanding or warning that unqualified students were slipping in through the back door of the admissions process by committing fraud, bribery, cheating, and dishonesty.”

Singer collected more than $25 million from parents to pay off college coaches and administrators who would then appoint students as college athletes, which was “in violation of the duty of honest services which the coaches and school administrators owed to their employers, thereby facilitating the applicants’ admission to the Universities,” the Varsity Blues class action lawsuit states.

As an example of the scheme perpetrated by Singer, the Varsity Blues class action lawsuit points to Sherry Gho, a Chinese student. Gho’s parents paid $1.2 million to Singer to assist in getting Gho placed on the Yale University soccer team.

For $400,000 in bribe money, the women’s soccer coach, Rudolph “Rudy” Meredith appointed Gho as a recruit for the soccer team even though she knew Gho did not play soccer. After Gho was admitted as a student to Yale, Meredith was paid another $400,000, according to the Yale class action lawsuit.

The Varsity Blues class action lawsuit goes on to discuss “rampant” bribery schemes that took place at the University of Southern California.  

A similar lawsuit was filed in March of this year against the defendants seeking the reimbursement of college application fees.

The proposed Class Members are “All individuals who, between 2012 and 2018, applied to UCLA, USC, USD, Stanford University, U-Texas at Austin, Wake Forest University, Georgetown University, or Yale University, paid an undergraduate admission application fee to one or more of these universities, with respect to an undergraduate admission application that was rejected by the university.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Simon B. Paris, Patrick Howard and Charles J. Kocher of Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky PC, Daniel E. Gustafson, Raina C. Borrelli and Mickey L. Stevens of Gustafson Gluek PLLC, John F. Medler Jr. of The Medler Law Firm and Caleb Marker, David M. Cialkowski, Brian C. Gudmundson and Alia M. Abdi of Zimmerman Reed LLP.

The Varsity Blues Class Action Lawsuit is Tamboura, et al. v. Singer, et al. Case No. 5:19-cv-03411, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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