Man earned $240,000 by helping students cheat on SAT, ACT tests, feds say

A man was sentenced in federal court in Boston on charges that he was paid to help others cheat on college admissions exams, according to the Department of Justice.

Mark Riddell, of Palmetto, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was sentenced to four months in prison with two years of supervised release, and he was fined $1,000 as well as told to forfeit $239,449, a news release from the District of Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Riddell’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

According to court documents, Riddell conspired with William “Rick” Singer, who owned a college counseling business, to cheat on exams in the U.S. and Canada from 2011 to 2019. At the time, Riddell was working as a college counselor at a boarding school in Florida. He began helping Singer’s students cheat on their exams and was paid by Singer to do so, a sentencing memo said.

At first, Riddell would take the students’ exams for them, using fake IDs with his picture and students’ names. When the nonprofits that administer the SAT and ACT began requiring students to upload photos with their exam registration, Riddell began posing as a test proctor and corrected students’ exam answers after they were submitted, court documents said.

The conspiracy was based at two testing centers – one at a public high school in Houston, Texas, and the other at a private college preparatory school in West Hollywood, California, prosecutors said in the news release. With the help of Singer, Riddell developed a relationship with test administrators at those locations, who accepted bribes to allow Riddell to manipulate the students’ exams, the release said.

In some instances, Riddell would work with the students to cheat during the exams, and in one instance, he took a student’s exam in his hotel room after they were unable to go to the test center due to an illness, his sentencing memo said.

Throughout the cheating scheme, Riddell was paid between $5,000 and $10,000 for each exam. He often secured scores within a point or two of the scores Singer requested, attaining inflated scores for 24 students across 27 exams, the sentencing memo said.

Prosecutors said that Riddell confessed to cheating on the exams, but authorities noted that Riddell was participating in the scheme while remaining employed at the school and making $71,000 per year. Riddell made nearly $240,000 over the course of eight years by inflating test scores, court documents said.

“He did not act out of desperation, he committed his offense because he could get away with it,” prosecutors said in the sentencing memo. “The government’s recommendation of 4 months imprisonment here balances these competing factors by taking into account the seriousness of Riddell’s crimes.”

Singer previously pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, the Department of Justice said.

This story was originally published April 11, 2022 at 2:13 PM with the headline "Man earned $240,000 by helping students cheat on SAT, ACT tests, feds say."