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Hi Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder and go darker than ever before. This is Crime House. For the last episode in our Night Watch University week, we're going all in on the biggest college admissions scandal in American history. Operation Varsity Blues. Welcome to Crime House 24 7. I'm your host Katie Ring. We're following the cases making headlines now where justice is still unfolding. Follow us wherever you are listening and if you want ad free episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. This episode discusses active criminal cases and breaking news. The information we share is based on what's publicly available at the time of recording and may change as new evidence comes to light. We aim to inform, not to decide guilt or innocence. So everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Meet Natural cycles, the only FDA cleared and CE marked birth control app that's 100% natural hormone free and side effect free. Here's how it works. The app analyzes daily changes in your body temperature to find your fertile window so you can plan or prevent pregnancy naturally. Natural Cycles is a clinically proven non hormonal birth control option that's 93% effective with typical use and 98% effective with perfect use. No synthetic hormones, just science. And if you're ready to start family planning, switching from preventing to planning a pregnancy is as easy as tapping a button. Plus, the Natural Cycles app makes tracking fertility easy. 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Rick was described as being shy as a kid, but as he got older and moved into his high school years, he eventually grew out of his shel and became known for two things. His big hair and his even bigger personality. He was likable, persuasive, comfortable, speaking to adults and positioning himself as someone who knew more than other people in the room. And this confidence never went away. He became a stellar athlete, and people who knew him said he was extremely competitive. When he graduated, he moved schools a bit until he finally settled down at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He played basketball there, and after seeing the sports world up close, he decided that coaching was his dream. He wanted to stay in that world where competition was cutthroat and only the best survived. After graduating, Rick returned to California and gravitated towards work that kept him close to young people and institutions. And by the mid-1980s, he seemed to have a stacked resume. But this is where the lies began and how Rick Singer went from an ambitious coach to to the architect of the nation's most famous admissions scandal. When Rick Singer graduated college, his love for sports led him to pursue a career in college coaching. But Rick didn't have much experience. So to boost his chances of getting a coaching job, he falsified his credentials, saying that he was a standout athlete from Texas A and M, which gave him credibility. But that couldn't have been further from the truth. Some people were skeptical of him, but others embraced who he said he was. He ended up getting a job at a community college in Sacramento, California, but it didn't last long because he was eventually fired for being abrasive. Even so, Rick didn't see this as a setback. He saw it as an opportunity for growth. And he kept pursuing coaching. His persistence placed him inside of a hierarchy that he soon became familiar with, where talent and performance mattered, but access, favoritism, and perception mattered just as much. In the early 1990s, Rick became an assistant coach for Sacramento State's men's basketball program, a role that exposed him to the mechanics of college athletics and most importantly, the recruiting process. Rick saw how coaches communicated with admissions offices and how the recruitment process could open doors that grades alone could not. He also saw how loosely regulated that influence could be. And with that, he began shifting away from coaching college kids to a more lucrative job of advising them. In 1992, he launched his first college counseling business, Future Stars College and Career Counseling. The company offered services that were becoming increasingly common among affluent families. Test prep, application guidance, and career counseling. Rick positioned himself as someone who could simplify a process that parents found confusing and stressful, especially because college admissions were so different from when they were kids. Now, their children couldn't just choose a college and get in. They had to excel in all areas of life and be the best of the best to get in. The Future Stars program was legitimate and quickly gained traction. And Rick was incredibly good at selling reassurance. He spoke confidently about colleges, universities and admissions and had the coaching and recruitment experience to back it up. His business grew steadily through the 1990s, but eventually Rick sold Future Stars to Scott Hamilton, who still operates the company today. And after that sale, Rick stepped away from counseling temporarily and took a job at the Money Store, a financial services company. There he worked in recruitment and training, and the role sharpened his skills. He already had sales, persuasion and relationship building by the early 2000s. Rick returned to education with a better resume and even bigger ambitions. So he moved jobs yet again. In 2004, he founded a new venture called the College Source. This time, Rick was not working alone. The company was launched with private investment money and backed by an impressive board closely tied to higher education. The network included the President emeritus of Stanford University and the director of the Carnegie Foundation. Now Rick was no longer on the outside looking in. He had what people close to him described as an encyclopedic knowledge of colleges and universities in America. This was a reputation Rick leaned into at the College Source. He knew school rankings, he knew admission trends, and he knew how certain families chased prestige. The College Source elevated Rick's credibility and embedded him further into elite education circles. But that chapter didn't last long. In late 2007, Rick moved on again, founding a new enterprise that he simply called the Key. Remember that? Because the Key would later become the centerpiece of his career and eventually the heart of the federal case against him, Rick structured the Key on more multiple levels. Its for profit arm was registered as the Edge College and Career Network llc, though it was publicly branded as the Key Worldwide. On its face, the business offered high end admissions counseling beginning as early as ninth grade. Families were told the process would be strategic and personalized. The company emphasized developing a student's personal brand, a phrase that resonated with parents who saw college admissions as a competitive marketplace. To families, this sounded like tailored advising. To prosecutors, it would later become clear that this program was the gateway to fraud. Because in 2012, Rick added a non profit component. The Key Worldwide foundation was created and approved as a tax exempt organization. On paper, its mission was philanthropic. The foundation said it existed to provide guidance, encouragement and opportunity to disadvantaged students around the world. It claimed to donate to other non profits and operate scholarship programs. But court documents would later show that the foundation served a far more sinister purpose. It allowed money to move discreetly. Parents working with Rick were instructed to make donations to the foundation rather than direct payments. Rick told them that the contributions were charitable and tax deductible. But that couldn't have been further from the truth. Investigators later alleged that the funds were used to pay bribes to standardize test administrators and college coaches, while Rick kept a portion for himself. By this point, Rick had combined every lesson from his past. From coaching, he understood athletic leverage. From counseling, he understood parental anxiety. From sales, he understood persuasion. And from years embedded in higher education networks, he understood where oversight was weakest. Rick openly referred to his method at the Key as the side door. He described it as quieter and more reliable than traditional admissions. And for years, it worked. By the mid 2010s, Rick's client list consisted almost entirely of wealthy families. He relied on referrals. He screened clients carefully, and he favored parents who trusted him without asking too many questions. And those careful screenings led him to the family that would eventually be at the center of this scandal and dominate the headlines. Because when parents Massimo Giannulli and Lori Laughlin came along, it seemed too good to be true. They were the perfect candidates for Rick's schemes. They were both famous and in turn uber wealthy. So when their daughters became old enough to start applying to colleges, when Rick jumped at the opportunity. And that led him to the face of Operation Varsity Blues. Olivia Jade. What's the only thing better than getting all of your favorite groceries from Kroger delivered through Instacart in as fast as 30 minutes? That would be getting in store prices on those groceries from the comfort of your couch or your futon or your kitchen table or your daughter's beanbag that's unexpectedly comfortable. You can enjoy in store prices on all of your faves at select Kroger locations and get delivery to your door in as fast as 30 minutes through Instacart for a limited time. Fees and in store offer exclusions apply. Confronting high credit card debt can feel scary. But the good news is if you owe $10,000 or more in credit card debt, financial relief options are now available. 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Born in 1999 and raised in Los Angeles, Olivia Jade grew up in a household shaped by fame and wealth. Her mother is Lori Loughlin, who is a beautiful longtime television actress best known for her role as Rebecca on Full House and later Fuller House. Her father is Massimo Giannulli, who founded the Massimo clothing brand, which grew into a retail empire before being sold in a deal that made the family extraordinarily wealthy. Their two daughters attended one of the top private schools and had all of the resources at their disposal. College was not a question of if, but where. By her teenage years, Olivia Jade had built a massive social media following of her own. Through YouTube and Instagram, she cultivated a joint 3.2 million follower audience tailored towards beauty, fashion and lifestyle content. Brand deals followed, and by the time she was finishing high school, she was earning pretty substantial income as an influencer. It seemed like academics, however, weren't her top priority. In videos posted before the scandal, Olivia Jade spoke openly about not being very interested in school and joked about attending college for the experience rather than the classroom. Those comments that were later replayed endlessly were not evidence of a crime, but they did shape how the public would interpret what happened next. As Olivia Jade entered her junior and senior years of high school, her parents began preparing for the college admissions process, and USC was one of her top choices. The school's proximity to home, its strong alumni network, and its cultural relevance made it appealing, but admission wasn't guaranteed. In 2016, Lori Laughlin and Massimo Giannulli were introduced to Rick Singer. By that point, Rick had been operating his admissions scheme for years. Remember, he presented himself as an expert. He was calm, confident, and someone who understood how selective schools were really worked and how to Work that system. So in 2017, he started advising Olivia. Initially, his role seemed conventional. He advised Olivia on test prep and essay writing strategies. He reviewed her materials and reassured the family that he could help manage the confusing process. Then, as deadlines approached, Rick shifted the plan. According to court records, by mid to late 2017, he proposed using athletic athletic recruitment to secure Olivia's admission to usc. He specifically suggested rowing, a sport with both admissions leverage and limited public scrutiny. But here's the thing. Olivia Jade was not a rower, and she had never even competed in the sport. But Rick told the family that it didn't matter. So in the fall of 2017, Rick arranged for staged photographs of Olivia posing on a rowing machine at a gym. The images were designed to make her look like a legitimate recruit and were submitted as part of her application. At the same time, Rick coordinated with Laura Janke, who at the time was an assistant coach on the USC soccer team. But despite being a soccer coach, she was able to create a fake athletic profile portraying Olivia as a competitive rower to facilitate her admission to USC as a crew recruitment. The agreement looked like this. Janky designated applicants as rowing recruits in exchange for Rick's bribes. She didn't coach Olivia or even evaluate her athletic ability. Her role was purely administrative and transactional. Rick paid Janky tens of thousands of dollars per recruit. In return, Janky submitted false athletic credentials to USC admissions, flagging applicants for special consideration. Once an applicant was designated as a recruit, the admissions process changed. The applicant was routed through a separate channel, and any academic shortcomings were less likely to trigger rejections because Jenky's endorsement carried significant weight. So In December of 2017, Olivia's application moved forward in the process as a recruit. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, money changed hands. Rick instructed the Giannullis to make payments to the Key Worldwide foundation, his non profit, which accepted payments as charity. In reality, Giannulli's charitable donations were bribes disguised to avoid detection. And in total, the family paid Rick approximately $500,000. And if you're thinking, wow, that's a lot of money for one person, here comes the shocker in the case of one that I don't think gets enough recognition. Olivia wasn't the only person in the Giannulli family who got into USC with Rick's help. Her parents initially paid him to get her older sister Bella accepted. And it was Bella who was actually the original USC recruit. Olivia just followed suit. But Bella didn't get nearly as much hate or publicity because she was much more private. In early 2018, Rick delivered on his second promise to the Giannulli family and got a lot of money from it. Olivia was admitted to the University of Southern California as a rowing recruit, just as Rick said she would. From the outside, her transition to college appeared pretty ordinary. She moved into campus housing and posted about dorm life. But unlike a lot of other students going to college for the first time, she got interviewed by Teen Vogue about it, which catapulted her into the spotlight even more. She continued producing online content, and there was no public indication that she had gotten into USC under the pretense of being an athlete. But what Olivia and her parents didn't know was that Rick Singer's operation was already under federal investigation. Beginning in 2018, federal authorities obtained wiretaps and and financial records documenting Rick's scheme. Facing overwhelming evidence, Rick didn't flee. Instead, he agreed to cooperate. And he turned on the very families that trusted him. He began secretly recording conversations with parents, including discussions about payments and admission strategies. Those recordings would later become key evidence, and it was enough for the feds to take action. So on March 12, 2019, Olivia's second semester at USC, 20 federal prosecutors unsealed indictments in a scheme that eventually became known as Operation Varsity blues. More than 50 people were charged nationwide. College coaches, administrators, and parents were accused of participating in the conspiracy to cheat the admission system. And Rick Singer was identified as the architect. And Lori Laughlin and Massimo Giannulli were among those charged. The charging documents described the alleged scheme in incredible detail, which looked a lot like Rick's plan for Olivia and her sister. Fake athletic profiles, bribes routed through a non profit, and coaches paid to falsify records. USC appeared repeatedly throughout the files. And as you can imagine, the fallout was immediate. USC announced that it was reviewing the admissions of students connected to the case. And within days, Olivia withdrew from the university. Her brand partnerships were suspended or terminated, and her online presence, which she worked so hard to cultivate, went dark. While Olivia faced no criminal charges, her life changed overnight. Her parents initially pleaded not guilty, maintaining that they believed the payments to Rick were legitimate donations. But prosecutors weren't buying it. They countered their claims with recorded conversations and financial evidence that told a different story. And with so many of their conversations on the record, they reversed course. In May of 2020, roughly a year after the charges were announced, Lori pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and Mossimo pleaded guilty to the same charges, plus one count of honest services fraud. Lori was sentenced to two months in federal prison, and her husband received a five month sentence. Both of them were also fined and ordered to complete community service. But what about everyone else involved in this massive scheme? Laura Janke, the USC assistant coach who facilitated the Giannulli daughters recruitment, also pleaded guilty and later testified for the government, detailing how Rick paid her to flag unqualified applicants as recruits. And as for Olivia, the consequences were social and personal rather than legal. She lost her place at USC and her reputation was reshaped by a narrative she didn't control. In later interviews, she spoke about the shame she felt and the difficulty of disentangling her own identity from the decisions made by her parents. She also said that she just wanted a second chance. But what's so interesting about all of this is that the USC scandal was never only about her. It was about how vulnerable athletic admissions pathways could be, how easily influence could override oversight, and how institutions failed to detect abuse until federal investigators intervened. Olivia Jade became the face of the scandal because the public knew her name. But behind her were many others admitted quietly through the same system whose stories were never fully told. If getting more fiber and protein while reducing net carbs, sugar and calories fits your health goals for the new year, get better macros in your Go to dishes with HeroBread from a quick 19 gram protein breakfast bagel to Taco Tuesday for the family, your favorite recipes are covered. They have sliced bread, tortillas, bagels and more with protein and high fiber. And there's.05 grams of net carbs and 0 grams of sugar. To help hit your goals with easy swaps for your favorite bready dishes, Herobread is offering 10% off your order. Go to Hero Co and use code HERO26 at checkout. That's 10% off with code HERO26 at HERO CO. All figures per serving of HeroBred contains up to 18 grams of fat per serving, not a low calorie food. See Nutrition Facts on Hero Co. By the time federal prosecutors stepped before cameras on March 12, 2019, they were deliberate in how they framed random Rick Singer scheme. Operation Varsity Blues was not about one person cutting corners. It was about a network that functioned because different people played different roles inside of it. According to the Department of Justice, the defendants fell into three broad categories the parents who paid to cheat the system, coaches and administrators who enabled it, and intermediaries who helped move money and falsify records. Together, those rules formed a pipeline that quietly bypassed traditional admissions for years. The first group was the most visible. A shocking 33 parents were charged nationwide, many of them wealthy and powerful. Prosecutors alleged they paid rick anywhere from $15,000 to over $500,000 to secure acceptances for their children. Actress Felicity Huffman was among the first to plead guilty. In May 2019, she pleaded guilty to paying Rick $15,000 to have her daughter's SAT answers corrected. And get this, she was sentenced in September of 2019 to just 14 days in federal prison. She also had to pay a $30,000 fine and due community service. Huffman's early plea set the tone for how prosecutors expected accountability to look. But other cases were far more complex. As I mentioned earlier, Lori Laughlin and Massimo giannulli paid approximately $500,000 to secure their daughter's admissions to USC as fake rowing recruits. Laughlin was sentenced to two months in federal prison, while Giannulli received five months. Douglas Hodge, the former CEO of Pacific Investment Management Co. Was another parent who was charged. He paid Rick to falsify his children's admission profiles and pledged pleaded guilty, receiving a sentence of nine months in prison and a $750,000 fine. The list goes on and on. Rick also worked with Bay Area parent Bruce Isaacson and other Silicon Valley executives who paid to place their children at schools like Georgetown, USC and ucla. Their outcomes varied and because there are so many of them, we're not going into crazy detail about them or else it would be very overwhelming. But in a nutshell, some parents pleaded guilty to charges similar to Lori and Mossimo's, while others went to trial. A handful of them were convicted by juries and in some cases, charges were later dropped or dismissed. The second category in Operation Varsity Blues was smaller but still essential coaches and administrators who enabled the scheme. Without them, the fraud couldn't have worked. At usc, longtime water polo coach Jovan Vavic became one of the most prominent figures charged. Prosecutors alleged that starting in 2013, Vovic accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Rick, and in exchange, he designated unqualified applicants as water polo recruits. Some had never even played the Sport competitively. Just three years ago, in 2022, a federal jury convicted Vovic of conviction, conspiracy to commit honest services, mail and wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit federal programs, bribery and honest services wire fraud. His conviction marked one of the clearest moments of the institutional accountability in this case. Meanwhile, also at usc, Lauren Janky accepted bribes to falsely designate applicants as rowing recruits, including Bella and Olivia Giannulli. She pleaded guilty in 2019, 2019 and cooperated with prosecutors, even providing detailed testimony about how Rick paid coaches per recruit. And the list doesn't end there At Stanford University, sailing coach John vandamore also admitted to accepting bribes to flag applicants as recruits. He pleaded guilty early, cooperated extensively, and received a lighter sentence, which prosecutors said reflected how important it was to to cooperate. Other coaches were charged at Yale, Georgetown, the University of Texas at Austin, ucla, Wake Forest University, and the University of San Diego. Some pleaded guilty, others fought the charges. In total, 11 universities were impacted by Operation Varsity Blues. The third Varsity Blues category operated mostly in the shadows, and those were the intermediaries. These included standardized test administrators and proctors who worked with Rick to facilitate cheating on the SAT and act. Prosecutors alleged that individuals such as Mark Riddell, a test administrator in Houston, accepted bribes to correct answers or allow cheating during exams. Riddell pleaded guilty and cooperated, helping prosecutors expose how testing safeguards were bypassed. Other intermediaries helped arrange for fake disability diagnoses so students could receive extended time and private testing rooms. Some coordinated logistics for stand in test takers. Many of them pleaded guilty quietly, their names never becoming widely known. Despite that, one thing is overwhelmingly clear. Together, these three groups formed a system that thrived on trust and minimal oversight. And that system was orchestrated by one one person, Rick Singer. In March of 2019, Rick pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. At the end of the day, he admitted what prosecutors already knew, that he orchestrated Varsity Blues and used his non profit foundation to disguise bribes as charitable donations. Then, five years after his entire scheme blew up in his face, Rick got a formal sentence. In January of 2023, he was handed three and a half years in federal prison, ordered to forfeit more than $10 million and fined. And while many people thought prosecutors went too easy on him, they said that his sentence reflected both the scale of his fraud and the fact that he cooperated. With Rick off to jail, it might seem like that was the end of this case. But in 2025, Rick resurfaced. After he was released from federal custody In March of 2025, reporting revealed that Rick wasn't done with the counseling services. In fact, he had begun offering college admissions guidance. Once again, he described the revived work as legal and transparent, adding that he had paid his debt to society. Critics responded by pointing out that the admissions consulting industry still remains lightly regulated and vulnerable to abuse. And it's especially vulnerable at the hands of someone who's abused it before. Meanwhile, that debate unfolds against a backdrop of growing admissions pressure. In the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, acceptance rates at selective colleges have reached historic lows. Many elite universities admitted fewer than 5% of applicants, and even large public schools reported declining acceptance rates as applications surged nationwide. The competition that once fueled Rick Singer's business has only intensified. The feds exposed how Rick Singer exploited that reality, and seven years after his indictment, the most uncomfortable question the case leaves behind is not what happened. It is whether the system will truly ever change. What did you think of tonight's case? Drop your thoughts and theories in the comments. And while Night Watch University Week is over, let us know if there are any other college cases that you want us to cover, because the list goes on and on. But until then, stick with us for more cases next week. See you next time. If you haven't already, Follow us wherever you're listening at crimehouse24.7. And make sure to follow us on social media rimehouse24.7 for real time updates, because the pursuit of justice never stops. Looking for your next listen. Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson and I have exciting news. Conspiracy theories, Cults and crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th. You'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.