USD admission bribery

Robert Flaxman pays $315,000 for children’s side-door admission into USD

Luke Garrett / Editor in Chief / The USD Vista

A Department of Justice investigation released on Tuesday, March 12 accused dozens in a nefarious college-admission scam. The scam allowed wealthy parents to increase their children’s college-entrance exam scores and created student-athlete profiles for easier admission through bribery. The federal report includes the University of San Diego along with seven prestigious universities such as Yale, Stanford, and University of Southern California. 

The report stated that between 2016 and 2017 a USD varsity sports coach, now unaffiliated with the university according to a USD statement, received $110,000 in bribes to assure Robert Flaxman’s son and daughter’s acceptances into USD. Flaxman is the president and CEO of a Los Angeles real estate firm. According to federal documents, only Flaxman’s son decided to attend the University of San Diego. 

This scam, according to federal investigators, was orchestrated by William Rick Singer, the founder of The Edge College & Career Network, LLC, a for-profit college counseling business, and The Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF), a purported charity. 

The Department of Justice documents laid out Singer’s two methods of racketeering, which include tampering with standardized tests and student-athlete recruitment scams. First, investigators said Singer bribed various ACT and SAT staffers to either take the exams in lieu of Singer’s clients or correct the exams to increase Singer’s clients’ scores. As a second method, according to federal investigators, Singer created false resumes for his clients as student-athletes. Singer is alleged by federal investigators to have racketeered the college admission process from 2011 up until this past month. Both methods were used in order to facilitate the acceptance of Flaxman’s two children. 

The Department of Justice complaint closely documented Flaxman’s 2016 participation in the college recruitment scam at USD. The scheme, according to the documents, involved Flaxman, a witness cooperating with the FBI, and a varsity sports coach at the University of San Diego. All worked to create an application for Flaxman’s son – an application fit to be accepted as an athletic recruit – despite the fact the son did not play the sport, federal documents stated. The USD Vista was unable to determine the identity or position of the varsity sports coach, or what sport Flaxman’s son was purported to play.

 In the federal documents, an email correspondence between Flaxman, his son, and the cooperating witness was reported. The email mentioned the changes made to the son’s application by the cooperating witness in order to solidify his student-athlete status. According to the documents, for the services, Flaxman paid Singer $250,000 through a purported donation for his son’s acceptance into USD in March of 2016. 

The USD Vista has confirmed the identity of Flaxman’s son and reached out to the son, who is currently a student at USD. The identification of the son was made by a directory search that finds only one undergraduate with the last name Flaxman. The son’s current year also matches the date of acceptance listed in federal documents. Social media posts with both the son and Flaxman further confirm his identity as Flaxman’s son.

The USD Vista reached out to the son for an interview, but the student denied an interview at this time. The student neither confirmed nor denied the federal investigations when contacted. Because Flaxman’s son is not mentioned by name in the federal investigation, The USD Vista has decided not to release his name at this time.  

According to the federal investigation, eight months after his son’s acceptance, the father began communicating with the FBI cooperative witness again, seeking to increase his daughter’s ACT scores. Investigators say Flaxman’s company wired $75,000 to Singer’s foundation. According to federal documents, Flaxman’s payment raised his daughter’s scores from 20 to 28. However, his daughter decided not to attend USD. 

USD’s President, James T. Harris III, P.h.D., released a statement midday Tuesday stating that the university is cooperating with the Department of Justice, no current university employees  are involved in the allegations, and the university will be conducting an internal investigation of the matter. In an interview, Harris confirmed that the administration has communicated with Flaxman’s son. 

“We didn’t know the student until today until we learned the information,” Harris said. “We did reach out to the student. We reached out to see if the student needed any counseling or support. Because we don’t have any idea if the student was involved or not.”

President Harris also made a point to distance the university from the racketeering itself. 

“Racketeering didn’t occur on campus,” Harris said. “The university wasn’t involved. An employee was involved.”

Both the Department of Justice and President Harris stated that the investigation is ongoing and more information about the countrywide racketeering case will be made public in the following weeks. For now, university students here on USD’s campus and across the country are left with serious ethical questions concerning the fairness and legitimacy of university admissions. 

The “USD admission bribery” article about the college admission scandal at USD inaccurately confirmed that the USD varsity coach received $110,000 in bribes. The federal indictment documents only confirm that the USD varsity coach, now known to be Lamont Smith, received, at the very least, $10,000.