Parents of a Chinese student fined $ 250 thousand

This decision was made by a federal judge in California as part of an admission fraud process.

An American judge ruled that a Chinese citizen residing in Canada must pay a fine of $ 250,000 after she admitted that she paid $ 400,000 to secure her son's admission to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) by giving bribes.

Xiaoning Sui, 48, appeared before a federal judge in Boston at the Zoom videoconference, in a second remote sentencing as part of an admission scandal process.

In February, Sui made a deal with the investigation and pleaded guilty to bribery. An agreement with the prosecution will save her from further imprisonment after spending five months in prison in Spain, where she was arrested last September while traveling in Europe. Prosecutors said five months in prison were comparable to sentences imposed on other parents accused of scandal. Lawyer Sui Martin Weinberg, noted that his client “deeply regrets what he had done” and was punished enough.

US District Judge Douglas Woodlock noted that the defendant deserves the maximum possible fine. “This is a monetary crime,” he said. “And it seems to me that you also have to pay for it.”

Sui is one of 53 people accused of participating in a scheme in which wealthy parents conspired with a university admissions counselor at UC in order to ensure that their children enter the best universities in the United States through bribes and other forms of fraud. William “Rick” Singer, an employee at the university, pleaded guilty last year to fostering college entrance exam scams and bribing university sports trainers to ensure that his children were accepted as imaginary athletes. Among the 36 parents accused, there is also the Hollywood star of the series “Full House” (Lori Loklin).

The prosecution said Singer told Sue over the telephone in August 2018 that $ 400,000 would be required for her son to enter U.S. universities, including UCLA. To ensure admission, Singer turned to Jorge Salcedo, UCLA football coach who had already taken $ 100,000 to help receive the daughter of another Singer client, prosecutors said.

After Singer began working with investigators, he called Sui and told her that he planned to use $ 100,000 out of 400,000 to pay his coach, after which she transferred money to him, the prosecutor said. In April, Salcedo pleaded guilty.