College admissions scam: Chinese mum Xiaoning Sui pleads guilty to paying US$400,000 bribe for son’s UCLA spot
- Prosecutors are recommending no additional jail time for Sui, who has been in custody since being arrested in Spain in September
- Money was given to sham charity run by admissions consultant William ‘Rick’ Singer as part of scheme to get son admitted on soccer scholarship
A woman charged in the college admissions scandal pleaded guilty on Friday to paying US$400,000 to get her son into the University of California, Los Angeles, as a fake soccer recruit.
Xiaoning Sui, 49, a Chinese citizen who lives in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, pleaded guilty to a single count of federal programmes bribery in Boston’s federal court.
The charge is used in cases of bribery at organisations that received at least US$10,000 in federal funding in a single year. In this case, Sui is accused of bribing an official at UCLA. Prosecutors are recommending no additional jail time for Sui, who was arrested in Spain in September and held there while authorities extradited her to the United States.
Dressed in a grey sweatsuit and speaking through a Chinese interpreter, Sui said she agreed with the prosecutors’ account.
According to charging documents, Sui paid US$400,000 to a sham charity operated by admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer as part of a scheme to have her son admitted as a fake soccer recruit at UCLA.
