Heiress to the Hot Pockets Fortune Gets Five Months in Prison in College Admissions Scam Case
“so very sorry that I tried to create an unfair advantage for my children”
If you didn’t know there is an heiress to the ‘Hot Pockets’ fortune, you’re not alone.
Reuters reports:
Hot Pockets heiress gets 5 months in prison for U.S. college admissions scam
A California woman whose family’s company created the microwavable snack Hot Pockets was sentenced on Tuesday to five months in prison for paying $300,000 to help her daughters gain an illicit edge in the college admissions process through cheating and fraud.
Federal prosecutors in Boston had sought a 21-month prison term for Michelle Janavs, 49, after she admitted she was among the wealthy parents who took part in the largest college admissions scam ever uncovered in the United States.
But while U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton imposed a lower sentence than prosecutors wanted, her rejected Janavs’ request for probation, saying she deserved prison for “deliberately corrupting the college admissions system.”
Gorton also ordered Janavs to pay a $250,000 fine. In court, Janavs said she was “so very sorry that I tried to create an unfair advantage for my children.”
Janavs is among 53 people charged with participating in a scheme in which parents conspired with a California college admissions consultant to use bribery and other forms of fraud to secure the admission of their children to top schools.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Is it really that unthinkable to spend the same money to hire the kids some tutors?
Truly the rich are different from the rest of us. Money appears to make them dumber.
Test scores are only a small part of it, as one can observe by market prices. Felicity Huffman paid only for SAT or ACT scores, and she got a very light sentence, a couple weeks if I recall. She paid much less to the scam, maybe $1500.
The pricy thing is the athletic endorsement, which Huffman did not seek for her kid. The other parents who got fake athletic endorsements paid much more and got much harsher sentences.
Merit, as reflected in test scores that anyone can study for, is an even smaller part of college admission than we imagined. In fact I suspect that many big name colleges want some relatively low scorers. to make the curve a bit easier.
What about the school officials that accepted the bribe?
I do not recall any charges on any of them.
Ten bucks says that what she’s really saying is “so very sorry that I got caught”.
Had the family donated $300,00 or more to the university- perhaps a scholarship fund- the family’s child would have been admitted without any problem, I suspect. The problem was that a middleman, not the university, got the money.
Again, I don’t fully understand why this merits a prison sentence.
How is this any different from Mini Mike using his billions to try to buy the presidency?