MIAMI (WSVN) - Two Hollywood actresses are making the news as being among those charged in a multi-million dollar cheating and bribery scandal, and now, according to authorities, there’s a South Florida connection to these crimes.
Robert Zangrillo, the CEO of the Miami-based investment firm Dragon Global, is one of 50 people charged in the case, Tuesday.
Authorities are calling the scandal the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“We’ve charged 50 people nationwide with participating in a conspiracy that involved first, cheating on college entrance exams, then second, securing admissions to elite colleges by bribing them to accept certain students under false pretenses,” said U.S. attorney Andrew Lelling during a press conference.
Zangrillo is one of the investors and a co-founder of the Magic City Innovation District development.
The billion-dollar project is a Little Haiti real estate development with the goal of transforming a small area of the community to put it on the map.
The criminal complaint alleged Zangrillo had someone take classes on his daughter’s behalf.
The complaint also alleged Zangrillo paid $50,000 in 2018 to the University of South California’s women’s athletics department for his daughter to be recruited by the crew team even though she didn’t row competitively.
According to the documents, Zangrillo also wired $200,000 to the Key Worldwide Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to “provide guidance, encouragement and opportunity to disadvantaged students around the world.”
The CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation, Rick Singer, was also charged in the cheating and bribery case.
“These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” said Lelling. “All of them knowingly conspired with Singer and others to help their children either cheat on the ACT or SAT and/or buy their children’s admissions to schools through fraud.”
The complaint also revealed that “in or about 2017, Zangrillo’s daughter’s initial application for admission to USC was rejected.”
But in 2018, USC offered her admission as a transfer student for 2019.
7News called the number listed for Dragon Global and asked if it was in fact Zangrillo’s company. However, the person who answered said they could not help us and hung up.
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