Gregory and Marcia Abbott and Peter Jan Sartorio are the 10th parents to plead guilty for bribes to improve their kids' ACT and SAT scores.
BOSTON — Gregory and Marcia Abbott's daughter's scored so extraordinarily on the ACT – a 35, up from a 23 – when they paid $50,000 last spring for someone to correct her answers that they hoped to do the same for her SAT subject exams.
Peter Jan"P.J." Sartorio, a 54-year-old packaged food entrepreneur from Menlo Park, California, also pleaded guilty to the same charges as the Abbotts – conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. At the same hearing, he admitted to paying $15,000 in cash to Singer in June 2017 to have Riddell to correct answers on his daughter's ACT test.
— Joey Garrison May 22, 2019 They are the 14th, 15th and 16th defendants to plead guilty in the Justice Department's sweeping"Varsity Blues" case out of 50 people charged. Ten parents have now pleaded guilty and an additional four parents have agreed to plead guilty and await their court hearings. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin O'Connell, made the prosecution's case, pointing to phone calls, emails and witnesses that detail each of the defendants participation in a scheme to pay Singer to produce artificially high test scores for their daughters.
The Abbotts told they judge they didn’t know about the payments to Riddell or Dvorsiky but confirmed they understood they were entering into an agreement for their daughter’s test scores to be corrected.
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