The college admissions scandal, which the Justice Department has called the biggest college admissions scandal it’s ever prosecuted, seems to have taken over the world by now — but according to The Wall Street Journal, it all started with just one Yale dad.
The Journal reports that Morrie Tobin, an L.A. financial executive with close ties to Yale University, was the tipster who set the entire investigation into motion. Tobin, who attended Yale and has a daughter who graduated from the university, was being investigated in a securities-fraud case when he offered a tip to federal authorities in an effort to obtain leniency in his own case.
Tobin reportedly told investigators that the head women’s soccer coach at Yale had once sought a bribe in return for getting his daughter into the Ivy League school. That tip led investigators to uncover the bigger scheme, in which wealthy parents reportedly paid bribes to get their children into elite colleges, and which also allegedly included bribing coaches to take students on as recruited athletes, thereby ensuring their acceptances to colleges.
According to the Journal, Tobin helped investigators catch the Yale coach, Rudy Meredith, by wearing a wire to a meeting in a Boston hotel room with Meredith in April 2018. During that meeting, Meredith reportedly said he could designate Mr. Tobin’s daughter as a recruit for the team in exchange for $450,000.
Prosecutors said that Meredith was working with William Rick Singer, a life coach who has been accused of being one of the masterminds behind the whole scheme. Later in the month of his meeting with Tobin, investigators say, Meredith agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.
Mr. Tobin wasn’t charged in relation to the alleged college admissions scandal, though he is awaiting sentencing in the securities-fraud case for which he was being investigated.