After a 40-day strike, a new four-year deal between the United Auto Workers and General Motors was approved. The contract was supported by 57% of the labor union. It includes an $11,000 bonus per member, annual raises and more affordable healthcare. General Motors still plans to close three factories in the United States.
The United Auto Workers union emerged with substantial wage increases of 3 percent in the second and fourth years and 4 percent lump sum payments in the first and third years, similar to what the union obtained in 2015. Even larger gains are in store for those in a category called “in progression,” the lower scale of a two-tier wage system negotiated in 2007 when the Detroit automakers were financially reeling.
Workers hired after that date, about a third of the overall work force, started at about half the pay of veteran employees and had no prospect of reaching the top wage, currently $31 an hour. Over the course of the new contract, the disparity will be phased out, and those with four years’ experience will rise along with more senior workers to the new top level of $32 an hour. In addition to pay increases, G.M. workers will get bonuses of $11,000 for ratifying the contract. They will continue to pay 3 percent of their cost of health care, well below the percentage that G.M.’s salaried workers contribute.
There were also rewards for temporary workers, about 7 percent of G.M.’s union work force, who will have a path to permanent employment after three years. About 900 of them will become full employees in January, the union said, and 2,000 more by 2021.
It also won commitments to new G.M. investments in United States factories. As part of the new contract, the company pledged to invest $7.7 billion in its United States plants, and another $1.3 billion in ventures with partners, providing a measure of job security. G.M. will put $3 billion toward overhauling the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, which had been scheduled to close in January. Three-quarters of the 700 workers there voted in favor of the contract.
At the same time, the agreement allows G.M. to close three idled factories permanently, including one in Lordstown, Ohio, eliminating excess manufacturing capacity at a time when auto sales are slowing. It also puts the company in a more stable position if the economy goes into a recession. The closing of the Lordstown plant was one of the main sticking points for some workers voting against the contract. “We did everything that G.M. ever asked of us at times of concessions,” said Bill Goodchild, a member of Local 1112 in Lordstown. “We feel we deserve a product.”
About 48,000 United Auto workers walked off the job over one month ago, making it the longest national strike at GM by United Auto Workers in nearly 50 years. The contract finally ends a strike that many estimate has cost GM $1.75 billion in losses. “We delivered a contract that recognizes our employees for the important contributions they make to the overall success of the company,” G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said in a statement.
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Britain police launched one of the largest murder investigations in decades after the bodies of 39 people were discovered in the back of a tractor-trailer at an industrial park east of London. Emergency services were called to an industrial park in the town of Grays in Essex, 20 miles east of London, at around 1:40 a.m. local time when the vehicle was discovered to have people inside. Thirty-nine people were pronounced dead at the scene.
The victims were found in the refrigerator unit inside the truck. Police confirmed that there were 8 women and 31 men inside the truck. The Essex police department said it was not immediately clear if the victims froze to death or suffocated. A police spokesperson said the truck had a Bulgarian license plate and entered the U.K. in Holyhead, Wales on October 19th. Holyhead is one of the busiest ferry ports in the area with primary service to Ireland. Authorities called such a route into the U.K. “unusual.”
Investigators believe the refrigerated trailer started its deadly journey in Zeebrugge, Belgium to Purfleet, England, where it arrived early Wednesday. Police believe it the tractor traveled from Northern Ireland to Dublin, where it took a ferry to Holyhead in Wales before picking up the trailer at the dockside in England. They have also suggested that two different trucks pulled the semitrailer at different times though it is not clear when the 39 people entered the refrigerated trailer.
Soon after, UK police have charged a 25 year old truck driver with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people in connection with 39 deaths in the back of the truck he was driving in southeastern England. Police say Maurice Robinson, 25, of Craigavon, Northern Ireland. He was the first of five people arrested in what is seen as one of the U.K.’s biggest cases of human trafficking.
U.K. police are struggling to identify the victims and said that very few documents were found inside the truck. Authorities said the task is likely to be difficult since human traffickers normally take the passports of their passengers to obscure their identities, stripping them of their names and giving them new documents when they arrive at their destinations. The victims are believed to have come from Asia and autopsies are being performed.
U.K. police say they’ve been in contact with Vietnamese authorities, even though they are not yet certain of the identities of those found dead in the refrigerated truck. The Vietnamese Embassy in London has set up a hotline for families to call about missing family members. The Vietnamese government has also announced its own investigation into the deaths. “The Embassy has sent a team led by the minister-counsellor in charge of consular affairs to Essex, England. They have met with the local police in an effort to verify the identity of the deceased, whose nationality still cannot be confirmed,” according to a statement from an embassy spokesperson.
Each year thousands of migrants die attempting to cross into Europe. Many sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea without a trace. Others die on land and mountain routes. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 4,503 people are known to have died worldwide in 2018, with the highest number perishing in the Mediterranean Sea.
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Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams has fired Police Officer Christopher Meyer, who threatened to shoot a family after their 4-year-old daughter took a doll from a Family Dollar store. The incident was captured in a viral cell phone video that shows Phoenix pointing a gun at the family’s car and threatening to shoot the girl’s father, Dravon Ames, in the face. The girl’s mother, Iesha Harper, is heard saying she is unable to hold her hands up because she is holding a child and that she is pregnant.
Meyer was one of a group of officers seen on video drawing his gun and cursing at Iesha Harper, who was pregnant and holding a baby, and her fiance, Dravon Ames. Officers were responding to a complaint about shoplifting last May. When questioned, the couple said they were unaware their 4-year-old daughter had taken a doll from a store. Police had said it went beyond shoplifting, and that the father refused to comply with commands several times.
The video prompted an immediate backlash when it surfaced in June. At a separate news conference, Ames and Harper said the officer’s dismissal should have happened a lot sooner but they were pleased nonetheless. The couple has filed a $10 million claim against the city. A second officer who was present will receive a reprimand for using foul language. But video shows he tried to calm the situation, Williams said. Williams rejected the Disciplinary Review Board’s recommendation that Meyer be suspended for six weeks. Instead, she fired him, saying “a 240-hour suspension is just not sufficient to reverse the adverse effects of his actions on our department, and our community.”
The decision to fire officer Meyer comes as Phoenix police announced the firing of another officer, Detective Dave Swick, who was involved in a Facebook database that tracked posts of current police officers across the United States that advocated for violence against Latinos, Muslims and women. Swick was fired do to facebook posts that were flagged as racist. Williams said her decision to let Swick go was “based on the number and the nature of the social posts.” Williams added that a total of 72 officers were flagged for their social media activity. Nine other officers were suspended following their investigation. A third officer who is under a criminal investigation for undisclosed reasons was also fired.
As a result, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association is now pondering filing a vote of no confidence in Williams because they feel her firing of Meyer was too harsh. Count Phoenix Councilman Sal DiCiccio is among those outraged by Williams decision saying she “gave into mob rule” from those who dislike the police. PLEA President London said the union has received 200 to 300 calls and emails from officers asking for a vote of no confidence over Williams’ decision to fire Meyer and Clinton Swick, who was terminated over his social media posts.
The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association released a statement: “The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA) has a complete understanding of the position Chief Jeri Williams is in as the leader of the Phoenix Police Department and as an appointed employee of the City of Phoenix. However, we do not agree with the decision to terminate the employment of Officer Christopher Meyer and Detective Clinton Swick. PLEA is dedicated to its members, and we ensure that we carry our members’ interests through until the end of all the processes that encompass employment with the City of Phoenix. An appeal hearing is in order, as the Discipline Review Boards for both Officer Christopher Meyer and Detective Clinton Swick recommended suspensions without pay that were on the lower spectrum of the discipline class. Neither Discipline Review Board, which are composed of community members and police employees, recommended terminating either Officer Meyer or Detective Swick.”
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Fort Worth, Texas Police Officer Aaron Dean, 34, has been arrested and charged with murder after he shot and killed a 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson inside her own home. Aaron Dean was booked into the Tarrant County Corrections Center and later released on a $200,000 bond, according to jail officials. The arrest came just hours after Dean’s resignation from the police force. Dean, who joined the department in April 2018, still faces possible civil rights violations, Kraus said.
Interim police Chief Ed Kraus said during a press conference earlier that he intended to end Officer Aaron Dean’s employment, but that Dean tendered his resignation first. Had the officer not resigned, I would have fired him for violations for several policies, including our use of force policy, our de-escalation policy and unprofessional conduct. Dean was initially placed on administrative leave after he shot Jefferson to death but he has not been cooperating with investigators in the case, Kraus said.
Officer Dean was responding to a non-emergency call from a neighbor for a wellness check after the neighbor saw Jefferson’s front door was open. Jefferson was playing video games with her 8 year old nephew early Saturday morning just minutes before she was killed. Body camera shows that when police arrived, Dean shined a flashlight through Jefferson’s window and yelled, “Put your hands up — show me your hands,” before firing a single shot at Jefferson seconds later. He never identified himself as a police officer.
Police Chief Kraus said he doesn’t know what, exactly, led Dean to open fire. “I cannot make sense of why she had to lose her life.” The chief said Dean resigned without talking to internal affairs investigators. The video included images of a gun inside a bedroom. Kraus said he did not know whether Jefferson was holding the weapon. But he said the mere fact she had a gun shouldn’t be considered unusual in Texas. “We’re homeowners in Texas,” the police chief said. “Most of us, if we thought we had somebody outside our house that shouldn’t be and we had access to a firearm, we would be acting very similarly to how she was acting.” Kraus said that, in hindsight, releasing the images of the weapon was “a bad thing to do.”
Jefferson was staying at her mother’s house in Fort Worth to help her recover from an injury when the shooting happened at about 2:25 a.m. A lawyer for Jefferson’s family, Lee Merritt, said her relatives were “relieved” over the arrest. Merritt said that on the night of the shooting she had been playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew and lost track of time. Earlier that night, he said, the family had opened the front door to allow crisp fall air inside to cool down the house. “We need to see this through to a vigorous prosecution & appropriate sentencing,” he tweeted. “The City of Fort Worth has much work to do to reform a brutal culture of policing.”
In a separate news conference earlier Monday, Jefferson’s family demanded an outside investigation into her death. “This man murdered someone,” Darius Carr, Jefferson’s brother, told reporters. Jefferson was “simply going on along with her life, living a law-abiding citizen’s peaceful life, and she was killed by a reckless act of a Fort Worth police officer,” an older sister, Ashley Carr, said. “There is simply no justification for his actions.” Police Chief Kraus brought the case to the Texas Rangers, who he said were not inclined to take it up at that point, and to the FBI, which did not immediately say whether it would review it.
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As the GM strike entered its fifth week, the United Auto Workers union announced that picketing workers can expect an extra $25 a week from the union’s strike fund. GM, on the other hand, can expect its dealers to face increased difficulty in sourcing certain replacement parts, while others worry about the prospect of subpar inventory. The UAW’s bargaining team presented a new comprehensive offer to GM as talks continued. In addition to the slightly boosted strike pay, the UAW also lifted the cap on cash earned at outside jobs. Starting Sunday, workers moonlighting at other jobs can keep the full strike payment, regardless of what they made in their alternate gig. Strike payments are typically clawed back on a dollar-for-dollar basis after the worker passes the $250 threshold.
In addition to a host of other issues, health care sits near the top of UAW concerns in this latest round of talks. With GM looking to downsize in an era of shrinking auto sales and economic uncertainty, offering generous health benefits represents a major cost to each company. An agreement was reached between GM and the UAW that keeps the previous health care arrangement intact. The agreement keeps the arrangement where workers cover just 3 percent of their health care costs — an agreement GM briefly abandoned earlier in the bargaining process. The automakers would undoubtedly seek concessions in other areas but unions are not prone to accept concessions lightly.
In the tentative deal with General Motors, the union won on many of its goals, including a path to permanent employment for temporary autoworkers, a faster route to top pay for workers hired after 2007 and a flattened pay structure for permanent employees, who would reach $32.32 per hour by the end of the four-year deal. The biggest obvious loss for the union is the continued closure of the Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio.
The Lordstown Assembly Plant in Ohio is to remain closed, as will transmission plants in Warren and Baltimore; and a parts distribution center in Fontana, California, will close during the term of the contract. The union said it negotiated assistance packages for workers at Lordstown, Warren and Baltimore transmission plants, including $75,000 payments for eligible production workers and $85,000 for skilled workers who retire. There are also buyout options for those not eligible to retire.
Some other features of the deal include UAW-represented GM workers will get a bonus of $11,000 upon ratification of the deal and temporary workers will get $4,500. GM will invest $7.7 billion in U.S. facilities to create or retain 9,000 jobs. There will be wage increases of 3% in the second and fourth year of the contract, with 4% lump sum payments in the first and third years. Temporary workers, who have been paid $15-$19 an hour with inferior benefits to permanent autoworkers, get a path to a permanent role starting next year. Part-time workers get a path to regular status starting in 2021. These workers also get improved paid and unpaid time off. By September 2023, all permanent manufacturing employees will be at $32.32 per hour.
The tentative deal is far from perfect and the UAW is trying to persuade union workers to accept the deal. Experts said General Motors has lost more than $1 billion in profits, while line workers have lost nearly $750 million in income. With the state of Michigan are losing tax dollars, there’s a growing sentiment that something has to change soon and many hope this deal will finally end the strike.
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Roughly half a million children in the U.S. could lose their eligibility for free school lunches under an administration proposal. Children whose families qualify for food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, can automatically get free breakfasts and lunches at school, but the administration’s new proposal would tighten eligibility for SNAP. The U.S. Department of Agriculture released an analysis this week showing that nearly 3 million people could lose access to food stamps under the proposed rule, including almost 1 million children.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released an analysis that says as many as 982,000 children could be affected by the change. Children whose families lost SNAP benefits would have to submit an application to determine if they qualify for free or reduced-priced school meals. About 45% of them — some 445,000 kids — would still qualify for free meals but about 497,000 kids who currently get free meals — would have to start paying a reduced price of 40 cents for school lunch and 30 cents for breakfast, since they come from families with an annual income of between 130% and 185% of the federal poverty level. Another 40,000 kids who currently get free meals would need to pay the full price because their family won’t qualify for the program anymore.
The National School Lunch Program serves roughly 30 million students, including about 20 million free meals daily. For those who don’t qualify for free or reduced price meals, the average price of lunch was $2.48 for elementary school students in the 2016-17 school year, according to the School Nutrition Association, which represents cafeteria employees and vendors.
According to the USDA, the proposal could cut $90 million annually from the cost of its school lunch and breakfast programs. They noted that the number of children being affected by the proposal could be less because some schools offer free lunches to all students regardless of eligibility. But the schools that offer this program requires 40% of students to be eligible for free meals, and the rule change could mean some schools no longer meet that threshold.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has said tightening access to SNAP would close a “loophole” that allows families receiving temporary assistance benefits to automatically get food stamps too. The USDA is not proposing changes to the income rules for the program. It says it is addressing a loophole that gives eligibility to people who would not have otherwise qualified.
The USDA released the details of its analysis after it was criticized for failing to report the impact its SNAP rule change could have on children’s access to free school meals. The agency has said the change is intended to make eligibility rules more consistent across the country, since states can grant people eligibility if they were enrolled in other assistance programs. Critics argue that the change will increase food insecurity among low-income families and add to states’ administrative costs.
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A suspect has been arrested after four homeless men were killed and one was critically injured when they were attacked in New York City early Saturday morning. Police said Randy Rodriguez-Santos, 24, who is homeless, wielded a 15-pound metal pipe and apparently attacked the men randomly as they slept on the sidewalks of Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown. Santos is reportedly also homeless and has struggled with addiction. He is charged with four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and unlawful possession of marijuana.
Police responded to reports of an assault in progress at Doyers Street and Bowery around 2:10 a.m. and found two men with head wounds. One victim was pronounced dead at the scene and another was taken to the hospital in critical condition. Over the next hour, police discovered additional victims in the area, two men were found outside of 2 East Broadway and another was found outside of 17 East Broadway.
Two witnesses told responding officers that the suspect was wearing a black jacket and black pants, which helped police find him quickly just a few streets away. Rodriguez-Santos was apprehended a few blocks from the scene of the attacks and the weapon was recovered nearby. The attacks left blood splattered on the doorways and sidewalks where the men had been sleeping.
The victims, whose ages range from 48 to 83, were bludgeoned as they slept on the street. Three of the four men killed were identified Monday, as lawmakers and mourners gathered at an emotional memorial for the men at Chatham Square. Several sidewalk tributes of flowers, candles and food were placed for the men who were allegedly killed by another homeless man as they slept. One of the mourners cried as she recalled the oldest victim, 83-year-old Chuen Kwok, always being grateful for the food she gave him. New York State assembly woman Yuh-Line Niou choked back tears as she spoke on the mens’ deaths. “If the change isn’t now, after this, I don’t know when it is.”
The medical examiner’s office later confirmed his identity and those of two other victims: 55-year-old Nazario Vazquez Villegas and 49-year-old Anthony Manson. Santos was arraigned on charges of murder and attempted murder for the bloody rampage. He did not enter a plea and was ordered held without bail. Police officials said Santos has been arrested 14 times, some of those for assault, including one in May for an alleged assault at a Brooklyn homeless shelter.
The suspect’s mother, Fioraliza Rodriguez, 55, told news outlets she had kicked him out about three years ago. He struggled with drugs, assaulted her and his grandfather, and stole from the family, she said. “I never thought he would kill someone,” she said. “I was afraid of him, though, because he punched me. That’s when I told him to get out of my house.”
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In Maryland, a self-described white nationalist Coast Guard lieutenant pleaded guilty to four federal weapons and drugs charges, after investigators uncovered his plot to kill high-profile liberal figures, including Democratic lawmakers, media personalities and judges. Fifty-year-old Christopher Hasson was arrested with a stockpile of 15 guns and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, after he used his work computer at the Coast Guard to read the manifestos of mass killers and to research sniper attacks.
Hasson worked as an acquisitions officer and was arrested at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington in February. Investigators said they found 15 firearms, two homemade silencers and more 1,000 rounds of ammunition in his Maryland home, as well as at least 100 pills of the painkiller Tramadol and more than 30 bottles of purported human growth hormone. Two of the four counts in Hasson’s indictment charged him with illegally possessing unregistered and unserialized silencers. He also was charged with possession of a firearm by an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance, and illegal possession of tramadol, an opioid painkiller.
Inspired by the manifesto of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, Hasson spent hours researching the tactics of domestic terrorists, prosecutors said. “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on earth,” he wrote on his computer, saying he would “have to take serious look at appropriate individual targets, to bring the greatest impact.” Among the targets on a list found on Hasson’s computer were Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes and Democratic Senator Kamala Harris. Hasson also targeted two Supreme Court justices and two social media company executives and searched online for their home addresses in March 2018, within minutes of searching firearm sales websites, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors wrote that the former Marine considered them “traitors.”
In a 2017 letter he sent to himself as a draft and apparently wrote to a neo-Nazi leader, Hasson identified himself as a white nationalist for over 30 years and “advocated for ‘focused violence’ in order to establish a white homeland,” prosecutors said. He researched how to make homemade bombs and mortars, studied sniper training and used his government computer to search for information about Nazis and Adolf Hitler, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors did not file terrorism charges against Hasson. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom indicated the government may seek the maximum sentence of up to 31 years in prison at the sentencing hearing scheduled for January 31, 2020. Hasson’s attorney, Elizabeth Oyer, said she intends to seek a 3.5-year sentence for her client. Oyer said Hasson “was not plotting a terrorist attack or any of the abhorrent acts that the prosecution has repeatedly speculated about but never actually charged. Mr. Hasson never meant any harm to anyone. He deeply regrets the pain and embarrassment that he has caused his family and the U.S. Coast Guard”. Oyer has said prosecutors found no evidence to back up terrorism allegations. She accused them of seeking to punish Hasson for “private thoughts” he never shared.
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On September 15th, nearly 50,000 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) launched a strike, walking out of over 50 General Motors facilities. Workers say GM continues to deny employees’ demands for fair conditions and compensation despite leading the company to record profits following bankruptcy and a federal bailout. The nearly 50,000 full-time and temporary workers represented by the UAW make up about half of its workforce.GM workers say they are pushing for a more equitable contract that will guarantee better wages for new hires, stronger health-care benefits and more job security. Workers are forgoing their paychecks during the strike, though the UAW will pay them $250 a week from its strike fund.
GM has made over $30 billion in the past six years, since recovering from its 2009 bankruptcy. Although they received profit-sharing checks that totaled $52,500 for the same period, workers want pay raises that will show up year after year. They gave up cost-of-living pay raises and made other concessions to keep the company afloat during its 2009 bankruptcy, and now they want to be repaid. Longtime workers have received only two raises since 2010. Workers hired after 2007 still make less than older workers, and the union wants to erase that gap.
The company is facing a global auto sales slowdown and also says health care costs are too high, and it wants to cut labor costs so they are closer to U.S. factories owned by foreign competitors. Senior GM workers now make around $30 per hour, but with benefits, it adds up to $63 per hour. Total labor costs run an average of $50 per hour at the foreign plants. The car giant has moved to close a handful of production facilities in the United States in recent years despite strong profitability margins. GM made $8.1 billion in profit after taxes last year but announced the closure of four factories, scuttling thousands of jobs. GM says it has offered to make $7 billion in investments and create 5,400 jobs, including introducing electric trucks, opening a battery cell manufacturing site and investing in eight existing facilities.
The strike has effectively halted GM’s production in the US and just a day after the strike, GM responded with a letter announcing they had cut off health insurance for the nearly 50,000 people on picket lines across the country. GM spokesman David Barnas said the decision to cut workers’ health care was a standard practice during stoppages, likening it to the cessation of worker paychecks. A spokesperson for the UAW stated that they would cover the striker’s health-care fees under COBRA in the interim from the pool of money it keeps for strikes. Employee dental and vision plans will not be covered during the strike.
The effects of the strike have been felt quickly, when GM dismissed 1,200 workers from an assembly plant in Ontario, Canada just three days after the strike started. GM has said the temporary layoffs were the result of parts shortages in the United States because of the strike. The factory had produced full-size pickup trucks. Analysts say GM could be losing as much as $50 million to $100 million a day from the stoppage. 
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U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani sentenced actress Felicity Huffman to two weeks in prison for paying $15,000 to get her daughter into college by having someone correct her answers on the SATs. Huffman also received a $30,000 fine and 250 hours of community service. She had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. Her lawyers asked for no jail time, one year of probation, 250 hours of community service and a $20,000 fine. Her sentence likely means other parents who’ve pleaded guilty in the nation’s college admissions scandal will spend time behind bars. It could also mean that others who made significantly larger payments will end up with more lenient prison terms than prosecutors say are fair.
During Huffman’s sentence she told the courtroom she was deeply ashamed. Judge Indira Talwani said, “Ultimately, you knew it was fraud, it was not an impulsive act. Trying to be a good mother doesn’t excuse this.” Talwani added that the sentence she handed down was “the right sentence here,” but also told Huffman “You can rebuild your life after this,” the judge said. “You’ve paid your dues.” Huffman will report to prison in six weeks, on October 25. Where she’ll serve her sentence has not been announced and will ultimately be decided by the Bureau of Prisons.
Fifty-two people have been charged as part of the college admissions bribery scandal known as “Varsity Blues.” Of the 52 people charged in the scandal, 35 are parents. Fifteen, including Huffman, have pleaded guilty in deals with prosecutors, while 19, including actress Lori Loughlin, have pleaded not guilty and are preparing for trial. Rick Singer, the mastermind of the nationwide college admissions scandal, was paid to have cheat on their children’s SAT or ACT while others paid substantially more to get their children falsely tagged as athletic recruits as a way into prestigious schools. Huffman is the first parent to be sentenced and prosecutors sought one month prison time for Huffman. Prosecutors are pushing for longer sentences for other defendants — more than three years in some cases.
The next parent to be sentenced in Boston federal court is Devin Sloane, CEO of Los Angeles-based waterTALENT. He pleaded guilty to paying $250,000 to Singer’s sham nonprofit to falsely designate his son as a water polo player to gain acceptance into the University of Southern California. Prosecutors are seeking one year in prison for Sloane. Sloane’s hearing is scheduling for September 24th. Two days later, Stephen Semprevivo, a former executive at Cydcor, also based in Los Angeles, will be sentenced. He pleaded guilty to paying $400,000 to Singer to get his son admitted into Georgetown University as a fake tennis recruit. Prosecutors have asked that Semprevio receive 15 months in prison.
Both upcoming cases will reveal whether the judge treats the recruiting scheme the same as the testing scam, and whether she comes down harder on parents who paid more to Singer. Longer sentences could be in store for parents who participated in the recruitment scheme because it had a more “direct effect” on the admissions process than test tampering. Such parents, including Loughlin, accused of paying $500,000 to Singer, have argued they made “legitimate donations” to Singer’s nonprofit, which they said had a history of donating to colleges.
Prosecutors have argued parents who paid more money to Singer should receive longer prison terms. An order by the judge released hours before Huffman’s sentencing could cap sentences at six months for parents regardless of their how much they paid. Judge Talwani ruled against the government’s request to sentence defendants under the federal commercial bribery statute, which allows more severe sentences depending on the amount of money paid. Instead, all sentences will be based on fraud statute guidelines, which recommend six months or less in prison for the offense.
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