Surrey, B.C. mom to plead guilty for bribing UCLA coach $100K in U.S. college admissions scandal

A Surrey, B.C. mother may not spend any extra time in jail, after pleading guilty in the U.S. college admissions scandal.

Xiaoning Sui has been in prison in Spain since her arrest in September, on U.S. charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.

In court documents filed on Jan. 23, Sui agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of federal programs bribery for paying a UCLA soccer coach US$100,000 to get her son into the university as a recruit.

In the submission, Sui’s defence lawyer and prosecutors with the Massachusetts U.S. attorney’s office agreed that a sentence of time served would be appropriate for the crime.

Sui would face 12 months of supervised release, and be liable for a fine and restitution to be determined at a sentencing hearing. She would also forfeit US$400,000 she’d put into an escrow account as a part of the bribery scheme.

The plea deal must still be approved by a judge.

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The plea deal documents shed more light on the bribery scheme prosecutors say Sui used to get her son, who didn’t play elite soccer, into UCLA as a soccer recruit with a 25 per cent scholarship.

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They key intermediary in the case was allegedly William “Rick” Singer, the same man who prosecutors allege B.C. business man David Sidoo paid $200,000 to help get his sons into select universities.

Sidoo has pleaded not guilty and denies all allegations, while Singer pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges in 2019.

According to the documents, in 2018 Singer told Sui he would write a college application for her son in a “special way” to guarantee he was accepted to UCLA.

Singer is then alleged to have created a fake soccer profile for Sui’s son, which depicted him as a top player for two private Canadian soccer clubs.

Singer allegedly sent the profile and Sui’s son’s high school transcript to Jorge Salcedo, the head coach of UCLA’s men’s soccer program.

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Salcedo then allegedly presented both to the UCLA athletics department in September 2018.

“Salcedo falsely wrote that he saw Applicant 1 play soccer ‘in China during a coaching education visit last year,’ and that Applicant 1 had ‘good quickness and speed,'” the document states.

Salcedo pleaded not guilty to bribery charges last March.

The documents state that the following month, Singer — who was then cooperating with authorities — joined a conference call with a recruiter, Sui and a Chinese translator.

On the call, Singer told Sui to wire US$100,000 to his own account, which he said would be “paid to the coach at UCLA’ in exchange for letter of intent recruiting son to soccer team,” the documents state.

“Singer further explained that the $100,000 would be paid to ‘the UCLA men’s soccer coach directly’ … ‘Sui responded, ‘OK.'”

In an email, Sui’s lawyer Martin Weinberg said her extradition process to the U.S. was almost complete, and that no U.S. sentencing date had been set.

— With files from the Associated Press