LATIMES.COM FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019A
er was a peripheral, if curi-
ous, player in an enormous
healthcare fraud investiga-
tion. The Esformes case
marks the first time Singer is
known to have crossed the
radar of law enforcement.
Singer would run his ad-
missions scam undisturbed
until another team of inves-
tigators, working in Boston
on an altogether different
case, caught a second
glimpse of his operation in
2018 and unraveled it.
Andrew Lelling, the U.S.
attorney in Massachusetts,
unveiled that investigation
in March. Fifty people were
charged, including dozens of
parents and coaches at such
elite schools as Yale, Stan-
ford, Georgetown and USC,
who were accused of selling
spots that their schools re-
served for recruited ath-
letes.
Esformes has not been
charged in the college ad-
missions case. Convicted in
April of paying and receiving
kickbacks in connection
with a federal healthcare
program and other crimes,
he faces decades in prison
when a judge sentences him
in September. His attorneys
declined to comment.
Spokespeople for federal
prosecutors in Boston and
Miami declined to comment.
It is unclear how much
federal authorities uncov-
ered of Esformes’ dealings
with Singer while investigat-
ing his case.
But at his trial in March, a
fraud expert used by the
government to make sense
of his finances testified that
Esformes had made
$400,000 in payments over
several years to Singer’s
foundation. At least some of
the money was traced to
Medicaid and Medicare
funds, the expert testified.
Singer has since admit-
ted that his Key Worldwide
Foundation was little more
than a sham used to launder
money from clients and par-
cel out bribes to coaches,
test proctors and bagmen.
Singer found an ideal cli-
ent in Esformes, an enor-
mously wealthy business-
man with a flexible moral
compass, who was willing to
pay top dollar to boost his
kids’ prospects at getting
into elite colleges.
By the time Esformes
was charged with healthcare
fraud and arrested in July
2016, he had paid Singer to
bribe one child’s way into
school and fix a college en-
trance exam for another, ac-
cording to comments by a
prosecutor in the college ad-
missions case and sources
with knowledge of Singer’s
operation.
Esformes paid Singer in
2012 to have his oldest child,
a daughter, admitted to USC
as a fake soccer recruit, a
prosecutor said when a for-
mer USC assistant soccer
coach pleaded guilty in May.
Singer bribed the coach to
falsely portray the girl as an
accomplished soccer player
and give her an admissions
slot reserved for athletic
recruits, said the prosecutor,
Eric Rosen.
The ex-coach, Laura
Janke, has admitted to
steering several children of
Singer’s clients into USC,
crafting fake athletic pro-
files that depicted them as
promising recruits and at
times using Photoshop soft-
ware to superimpose their
faces onto pictures of real
athletes. She has pleaded
guiltyto racketeering con-
spiracy.
The daughter, who could
not be reached for comment,
was enrolled at USC for a
year before transferring to a
fashion school in New York
City, according to a source
with knowledge of the case
and her LinkedIn profile.
Esformes reconnected
with Singer in 2014 as his old-
er son began applying to col-
lege, text messages show.
The messages were filed in
court during Esformes’ trial.
FBI agents seized three
iPhones from Esformes’ lux-
ury high-rise when they ar-
rested him in July 2016. In a
string of text messages ob-
tained from one of the
phones, Esformes sought
Singer’s opinion of his son’s
SAT score.
“I think total was 2000,”
Esformes reported.
“Very good for starter,”
Singer replied.
The two men went back
and forth, with Esformes
asking what score “gets u in
all?” Singer explained ath-
letic recruits were held to a
lower test-score standard
than regular applicants.
The distinction would
take on importance when
authorities learned Es-
formes had hired an associ-
ate of Singer, Martin Fox, to
provide one-on-one basket-
ball coaching for his son. As
with Singer, prosecutors
found Esformes’ payments
to Fox significant enough to
tally the $114,000 Esformes
paid him and have the jury
hear testimony about Fox
during trial, according to
transcripts of the trial.
Fox, a basketball coach in
Texas and well-connected
figure in national youth and
college basketball circles,
has been charged in the col-
lege admissions case for al-
legedly relaying bribes from
Singer to two coaches and an
exam proctor. Fox has
pleaded not guilty and his
attorney declined to com-
ment.
When it came time for his
son to apply to college, Es-
formes appears to have tak-
en a page from Singer’s play-
book. In a bribery deal simi-
lar to what prosecutors say
Singer pulled off for his
daughter, Esformes paid the
head basketball coach at the
University of Pennsylvania
more than $300,000 to put
his son on a list of recruited
players, according to testi-
mony from the coach,
Jerome Allen.
Allen said during Es-
formes’ trial that the
businessman’s son wasn’t
qualified to play basketball
for the school and wouldn’t
have been admitted without
his endorsement. There is
no indication Singer was in-
volved in that deal.
The son, who graduated
this year from the University
of Pennsylvania, declined to
comment.
Prosecutors in Esformes’
case charged Allen with
money laundering, and add-
ed a bribery charge to the
dozens Esformes had al-
ready faced. Allen, now an
assistant coach with the
Boston Celtics, pleaded
guilty and was sentenced
last month to four years of
probation.
Esformes paid Singer to
rig his third child’s college
entrance exam in late 2015,
people familiar with the in-
vestigation said. An expert
test-taker corrected the
boy’s answers at a public
high school in Houston,
where Singer has acknowl-
edged paying off a teacher to
turn a blind eye to the cheat-
ing, the sources said. The
teacher, Niki Williams, has
been charged with racket-
eering conspiracy. She has
pleaded not guilty.
Esformes’ estranged wife
is seeking a divorce. She de-
clined to comment through
her attorney.
Esformes has remained
in custody since his arrest in
July 2016. A judge found him
a flight risk and denied him
bail.
While he sat behind bars,
Singer’s operation — both
his above-board college
counseling business and the
criminal enterprise beneath
—was booming. Many of the
33 parents charged in the ad-
missions scandal hired Sing-
er during the period after Es-
formes’ arrest.
Singer even picked up an-
other Miami client: Robert
Zangrillo, a venture capi-
talist whose daughter, like
Esformes’, was allegedly
ushered into USC as a fake
athletic recruit. Zangrillo
has been charged with con-
spiracy to commit fraud and
money laundering. He has
pleaded not guilty.
The beginning of the end
for Singer came in the spring
of 2018, when prosecutors in
Boston were told by the tar-
get of a securities fraud
probethat a soccer coach at
Yale was trading recruiting
spots for bribes.
The coach, Rudy
Meredith,was caught sev-
eral weeks later taking cash
in a videotaped hotel room
sting. He confessed, and led
authorities to the scam’s
ringleader.
On March 13, one day af-
ter authorities in Boston
charged Singer and 49 oth-
ers with perpetrating the
most prolific college admis-
sions con ever uncovered by
U.S. law enforcement, a
prosecutor in Miami proj-
ected some text messages
onto a screen. Philip Es-
formes was in his 21st day of
trial.
The government called
one of its expert witnesses totell the jury about the text
messages.
“Did you see any text
messages between Mr. Es-
formes and anyone dis-
cussing Morris Esformes’
SAT scores?” the prosecutor
asked.
The witness said he had.
“What was the name of
that person?”
“A gentleman,” he said,
“by the name of Singer.”Medicare case held clues to college scam
[S inger,from A1]
WILLIAM“Rick” Singer leaves federal court in Boston. The Esformes fraud case
marks the first time Singer is known to have crossed law enforcement’s radar.Steven SenneAssociated PressPHILIP ESFORMES
was convicted in April of
masterminding a Medi-
care kickback scam.Department of Justice
MARTIN FOX,an asso-
ciate of Singer, was hired
by Esformes to coach his
son in baskeball.Department of Justice