Judge calls alleged investigator misconduct in Lori Loughlin case 'serious and disturbing'
BOSTON — A federal judge Friday called allegations of law enforcement misconduct in the nation's college admissions scandal headlined by actress Lori Loughlin "serious and disturbing" as he ordered prosecutors to provide more information in the blockbuster case.
U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton made the comments in a written order as defense attorneys for 14 parents, including Loughlin, seek dismissal of the case because of the alleged misconduct.
At issue are notes Rick Singer, the mastermind of a nationwide college admissions scheme, took on his iPhone after discussions with FBI investigators on Oct. 2, 2018 about recorded phone calls they directed him to make to parents who were his clients.
Singer was cooperating with the FBI. He wrote that agents told him to lie and get his clients to restate they were making bribes to college officials – counter to what he claimed he actually told them before they paid him to get their children into college.
"The Court considers the allegations in Singer's October notes to be serious and disturbing," Gorton wrote. "While government agents are permitted to coach cooperating witnesses during the course of an investigation, they are not permitted to suborn the commission of a crime."
The judge did not decide whether to dismiss the case, instead ordering prosecutors to respond to the allegations. The defendants then have until May 1 to respond to the government.
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment.
n one note, Singer wrote that FBI officials got "loud and abrasive" and "continue to ask me to tell a fib" about what he told clients before they paid into his scheme.
He said the FBI wanted him to not to restate what he actually told his clients — that they were making a payment to an athletic program, not a college coach.
Defense attorneys say the notes prove their clients' innocence – that parents thought they were making legitimate donations to college programs, not bribing college officials, to get their children admitted into elite colleges. The defense says the government "knowingly withheld" the evidence, which was not turned over until February.
They've also argued the notes, which they first raised in court Feb. 27, undermine "one of the government’s most valued pieces of evidence," ie. secretly recorded phone calls that the FBI had Singer make with his past clients to admit to their crimes.
"The notes state that agents browbeat Singer and instructed him to lie in order to elicit misleading evidence that was inconsistent with the actual facts that Singer had explained to agents," attorneys for the parents wrote in a motion to dismiss filed last month.