story. Born and raised in Montreal, Tobin
was a good student himself, star athlete,
and teen heartthrob. As a high school
classmate told the Montreal Gazette,
“Every guy wanted to be Morrie Tobin. I
wanted to be Morrie Tobin.” In 1981, he
started at Yale, playing on the hockey
team. “He was loud, gregarious, boister-
ous,and seemed to me obnoxious but
basically good-natured,” recalls one of
his housemates, artist Alexi Worth.
Some who knew him marveled that he
got into Yale in the first place, but two
years after starting there, he transferred
to the University of Vermont. He wound
up back in Canada, became a financial
executive, and started a large family with
his wife, Gale. He eventually moved the
family from Toronto to L.A., where he
began to burnish his image. On his since-
disabled Twitter account, he referred to
himself as #socialentrepreneur and
talked about his experience volunteering
at a homeless shelter. He chose for his
five daughters the Marlborough school,
a tony girls academy.
Marlborough had been a target com-
munity for Singer going back to 2014,
perhaps even earlier. Michael Heeter,
a former Marlborough college coun-
selor, recalls one of his students at the
time telling him that “she was promised
UCLA” by her college consultant—a guy
he’d never heard of, a guy named Rick
Singer. UCLA had been recruiting the
student as manager of the swim team,
she told him—which was curious to
Heeter given that she wasn’t involved
in swimming at all. Singer, the girl told
Heeter, had instructed her to keep this
exciting information to herself—and not
to tell her school guidance counselor.
Heeter promptly relayed this odd infor-
mation to the then head of the school,
Barbara Wagner. She instructed Heeter
to email Singer not to “approach our
families again.” But Singer wasn’t one
to fear administrators.
The Tobin girls were a powerful force at
Marlborough; in the perception of others,
they gave off an aura of specialness and
privilege. “For whatever reason, they were
untouchable,” says a Marlborough par-
ent. Morrie, despite his own incomplete
stint at Yale—or perhaps because of it—
seemed set on Yale for his girls. And one
by one, three got in (a fourth went to the
University of Pennsylvania). For a small
school like Marlborough, spots at a college
like Yale were
THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE
Prep school Family Scammer Colle ge
CONTINUED ON PAGE 126
BRIAN
WERDESHEIM
Buckley parent
and board member;
connected
associates and
other families
to Singer
DEVIN
SLOANE
Buckley parent
and board member.
Forged son’s
application by
photoshopping water
polo shots
RUDY
MEREDITH
Former Yale women’s
soccer coach;
pleaded guilty
to taking $866,000
in br ibes
MORRIE
TOBIN
Five Marlborough
daughters;
exposed entire
scandal when
caught up in separate
stock scam
BRENTWOOD
SCHOOL
Founded in 1972;
has produced several
Olympic athletes
MARLBOROUGH
All-girls academy
in Hancock
Park; founded in 1889
JANE
BUCKINGHAM
Parenting “expert”;
paid at least
$35,000 to
Singer for advising
her son
GUO
FAMILY
Enlisted Singer as
adviser for daughter
Sherry; paid him
$1.2 million after she
got into Yale
USC
Associate
athletic director
Donna Heinel
and three coaches
implicated
RICK
SINGER
Pleaded guilty
to money laundering,
racketeering, tax
evasio n, and
obstruction of justice
in scam involving
dozens of families
BERKELEY
The school
Eliza Bass ultimately
attended
YALE
UNIVERSITY
Soccer coach
pleaded guilty
to bribery; rescinded
admission to
Singer-affiliated
student
THE BUCKLEY
SCHOOL
Founded in
1933 in Sherman
Oaks; motto
is “Dare to be true”
GEORGETOWN
Received fraudulent
application from
Bass; later expelled
two students
caught up in scandal
In the grand scheme of Varsity Blues,
all roads lead back to Rick Singer.
ADAM
BASS
Singer client;
Buckley parent and
board member
PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT EISEN/GETTY IMAGES
SEPTEMBER 2019 81
