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William (Rick) Singer, who spent 16 months in a federal prison camp for masterminding the 2019 Varsity Blues admissions scandal, is preparing to launch a new, legitimate college counseling company, The Wall Street Journal reported.
He told the Journal he was finished “living in the gray” and has made a “concerted effort to live in black and white.”
Singer pleaded guilty in 2019 to four federal charges for selling wealthy families what he called a “side door” for their children into highly selective universities. Among other things, he bribed athletic coaches at institutions including Yale University and the University of Southern California to accept students as athletic recruits, regardless of their abilities, and paid off test center administrators to ignore cheating on the SAT and ACT. In the process, he earned some $25 million.
Singer cooperated with prosecutors in the case, delaying his sentencing until last year. More than 50 other people—including Division I coaches and the Hollywood actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin—pleaded guilty or were convicted in the scheme.
Now Singer is finishing out his sentence in a halfway house in the Los Angeles area, the Journal reported, plotting his new company, ID Future Stars, from there.
He said people continued to seek his services even when he was in prison.
“They care about their kids,” he told the Journal. “They want, in my opinion, the best person possible to work with them. They trusted me and knew that we knew things better than everybody else.”
He vowed to charge “reasonable” fees for his services, which will also include finding jobs and apprenticeships for high school graduates who don't plan to attend college.
“I’ve had four and a half, five years to eat my humble pie and move on,” he said. ”I’m all about moving forward.”
