California mom gets six weeks in jail in college admissions scam

She was the 32nd parent to admit guilt in the case, which the U.S. says is the largest college admissions case the Justice Department has ever brought.

Media executive Elisabeth Kimmel was sentenced to six weeks in jail and a $250,000 fine in the U.S. college admissions scandal, and another parent agreed to plead guilty, as the massive case winds down.

Kimmel, of La Jolla, California, was sentenced in federal court in Boston on Thursday, the same day warehouse and shipping executive I-Hsin “Joey” Chen agreed to change his plea rather than face trial, almost three years after the sprawling prosecution was announced.

Kimmel, the former chief executive officer of a California-based media company, was the 32nd parent to admit guilt in the case, which the U.S. says is the largest college admissions case the Justice Department has ever brought. She pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, just weeks before she was to go on trial with three other parents in Boston.

Prosecutors said she had agreed to pay at least $275,000 in bribes to get her daughter into Georgetown University as a purported tennis recruit and $250,000 to get her son into the University of Southern California as a pole vaulter. She was also notable for arguing that her case should be thrown out because she’d be risking her life if she took the witness stand.

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