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One of the most prominent parents, actress Lori Loughlin, surrendered to FBI agents in Los Angeles at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, a spokesman for the agency said. Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to get their two daughters accepted as recruits for the rowing team at the University of Southern California, even though neither took part in the sport. Giannulli was arrested Tuesday and released on $1 million bail.
Loughlin was scheduled to appear in court at 2 p.m.
The central figure in the case, William Singer, a college admissions consultant based in Newport Beach, California, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges in Boston on Tuesday and was released on bail.
The accusations against Singer, also known as Rick Singer, pose potential problems for the organizations behind the two most widely used college admissions tests, the SAT and the ACT.
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According to prosecutors, Singer bribed test administrators and proctors to tamper with students’ answer sheets, or in some cases to take the whole test in a student’s place, to obtain the scores that were agreed in advance with the parents who paid him.
The conspiracy relied on the parents getting medical documentation that would entitle their children to extra time on the test, an accommodation normally made for students with disabilities. Students who need extra time generally take the test alone, supervised only by a proctor — providing the opportunity for the bribed proctor to rig the outcome.
According to court filings, in a conversation with one of the parents, Gordon Caplan, Singer explained that for $4,000 or $5,000, a psychologist he worked with would write a report saying Caplan’s daughter had disabilities and required special accommodations.
Caplan is the co-chairman of global law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The firm said Wednesday it had put Caplan on a leave of absence and that he would have no further management responsibilities.
One of the other prominent parents caught up in the case, William E. McGlashan Jr., a partner at private equity firm TPG, was also placed on leave Tuesday by his company. On Wednesday, he stepped down from the board of STX Entertainment, the film studio he helped found with film producer Robert Simonds.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.