Mark Riddell, Cheating on College Admissions Tests, Massachusetts 2019

BOSTON — Mark Riddell, a 36-year-old from Palmetto, Florida, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with accepting payments to cheat on the ACT and SAT exams, and other tests.

Riddell, who is scheduled to be sentenced on July 18, 2019, at 3:00 p.m., conspired with William 'Rick' Singer and others to cheat on college entrance exams in the United States and Canada from 2011 through February 2019.

As part of the scheme, Riddell secretly took college entrance exams in place of students, or corrected the students' answers after they had taken the exam. Singer, who pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of justice, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 19, 2019.

The cheating scheme was facilitated by Singer, who counseled his clients to seek extended time on the exams, including by having their children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain the required medical documentation. Once the extended time was granted, Singer instructed the clients to change the location of the exams to one of two test centers: a public high school in Houston, Texas, or a private college preparatory school in West Hollywood, California.

Singer had established relationships at those locations with test administrators Niki Williams and Igor Dvorskiy, who allegedly accepted bribes of as much as $10,000 per test in order to facilitate the cheating scheme. Specifically, Williams and Dvorskiy allowed Riddell to take the exams in place of the students, to give the students the correct answers during the exams, or to correct the students' answers after they completed the exams.

According to the charging documents, Singer paid Riddell $10,000 for each test. Singer's clients paid him between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, with the payments structured as purported donations to the KWF charity controlled by Singer. In many instances, the students taking the exams were unaware that their parents had arranged for the cheating.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/test-taker-college-admissions-case-pleads-guilty