Grado de dificultad: 3 (artículo en inglés)
Columnista: Roberto
“Operation Varsity Blues”
You may have already heard of the “Operation Varsity Blues”.
If not, here is a short remind of this shady and shameful affair:
A nationwide scam was discovered in the United States and led to an investigation by the FBI.
TMN reported it a while ago, in a post called “Rich Dads and the American Dream”.
This operation was about an elaborated cheating scheme, intended to allow rich parents’ children in prestigious universities.
As always, “all magic comes at a price“.
They got caught, basically because the targets were wealthy, but not powerful enough to reach directly the head of the universities.
A Wikipedia article, called “2019 college admissions bribery scandal”, gives a lot of details on this affair.
A question remains, however, that won’t receive any answer:
The cheating scheme seems of have started in 2011 and was only unveiled in 2019. What about the 8 years preceding the massive indictment?
Felicity Huffman shall be the very first
… to be condemned.
She pleaded guilty to pay 15 grands to forge the result of her elder daughter’s “SAT Reasoning Test”.
Compared to others, it was “almost” a small cheating, and also the reason why 20 among the 33 indicted parents preferred to plead NOT guilty (very good luck with that).
The process was really fast (the revelation of the affair was in March 2019, 6 months earlier).
The final sentence is also clement, if you compare to what humble people could face:
- 14 days in prison,
- One year of supervised release,
- 250 hours of community service,
- A $30,000 fine.
The news was reported in the Washington Post, among others:
Her universe didn’t collapse
She is an actress. It this case, this is a curse: no one will believe her feelings.
Maybe this is the reason why the judge was so adamant in imposing a jail time (even if ridiculously short).
She may think, right now, that the shame is almost unbearable, and that going to jail is degrading.
Let’s face it, madam, it’s not. You’ll only be there for fourteen days.
Then you will get an unlikely job for 2 month and a tag on you for a year (for normal people the “supervised release” is far more complicated).
Her husband (of course), her friends, her colleagues, will forgive her and move one. She cleaned her honor, already.
The message sent by this first decision is “Do yourself a favor and pay cash”
Not everything is solved
Since we are not pharisees (like many people around her), we will grant her the benefit of the doubt.
The look in the eyes of her daughters will cost more than that, however. Time will tell.
Hopefully she will understand that, instead of being afraid for her children, she ought better to teach them to be strong.
Some asked the important question: did she thought of the random kids she hurt and threw out by her selfish action?
In the eyes of these young people, how does she think she looks?
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