UCLA parent pleads guilty to charges in college admissions scandal
Xiaoning Sui pleaded guilty in federal court Friday for paying William Singer, the organizer of the 2019 college admissions scandal, to have her son admitted to UCLA as an athletic recruit. (Daily Bruin file photo)
By Maanas Hemanth Oruganti
Feb. 22, 2020 3:09 p.m.
A woman pleaded guilty in a federal court Friday for paying to get her son admitted to UCLA as an athletic recruit.
Xiaoning Sui, a 49-year-old Chinese national and Canadian resident, pleaded guilty to planning to pay $400,000 to William Singer, the organizer of the 2019 college admissions scandal, to have her son admitted to UCLA as a soccer recruit, even though he did not have any competitive experience.
Parents involved in the 2019 college admission scandal paid Singer to work with athletic coaches at a number of universities, including UCLA, to grant their children admission as recruits, all of whom had no competitive experience.
Sui was arrested in Spain last September while on vacation and spent five months in prison, awaiting extradition to the United States, according to USA Today. She was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
Sui accepted a deal with authorities to plead guilty to federal program bribery in late January, according to USA Today.
Prosecutors said after receiving $100,000 from Sui, Singer forwarded her son’s profile to UCLA’s former men’s soccer coach Jorge Salcedo and former head USC women’s soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin, according to USA Today. Salcedo pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges in March 2019 and faced additional charges of conspiring to commit federal programs bribery in October 2019.
Prosecutors have not determined whether Sui really paid the remaining $300,000. However, Sui pleaded guilty for planning to pay the full $400,000.
