Palo Alto parents admit to cheating, will plead guilty in college admissions case
FILE ART - SAT test
BOSTON - Two Silicon Valley parents have agreed to plead guilty in a college admissions cheating case, according to U.S. Department of Justice.
Gregory Colburn, M.D., 63, and Amy Colburn, 61, of Palo Alto will admit to paying $25,000 to facilitate cheating on their son’s SAT exam, US Attorney's Office - District of Massachusetts said Wednesday in a press release.
The couple agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud.
Their plea hearings have not yet been scheduled. The US Attorney's office said the Colburns were previously scheduled for trial on Jan. 13, 2022.
The alleged scheme involved defrauding The College Board by paying William "Rick" Singer to bribe Igor Dvorskiy, who the US Attorney's office calls "a corrupt test administrator," to allow "corrupt test proctor," Mark Riddell, to secretly correct the Colburns’ son’s SAT exam answers to obtain a fraudulently inflated score.
Singer, Dvorskiy and Riddell have pleaded guilty for their respective roles in the scheme.
As for the parents' punishments, each of the defendants has agreed to sentences, subject to the Court’s approval. Under the plea agreement, that could translate to eight weeks in prison, one year of supervised release with 100 hours of community service and a fine of $12,500.
The Colburns' are respectively the 36th and 37th parents in the college admissions case to either plead guilty or be convicted by a jury following trial, the US Attorney's Office said.