周二，聯邦檢察官對50人提出指控，他們涉嫌參與通過行賄「購買」耶魯、斯坦福及其它名校新生入學資格的無恥騙局。 STEVEN SENNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A teenage girl who did not play soccer magically became a star soccer recruit at Yale. Cost to her parents: $1.2 million.
一個不會踢足球的女孩神奇地作為明星球員被耶魯大學徵募。她父母的花費：120萬美元。
A high school boy eager to enroll at the University of Southern California was falsely deemed to have a learning disability so he could take his standardized test with a complicit proctor who would make sure he got the right score. Cost to his parents: at least $50,000.
一名渴望進入南加州大學(University of Southern California)的高中男孩被不實認定為學習障礙，以便他可以在串通好的監考員陪同下參加標準化測試，後者將確保他分數達標。他父母的花費：5萬美元。
A student with no experience rowing won a spot on the U.S.C. crew team after a photograph of another person in a boat was submitted as evidence of her prowess. Her parents wired $200,000 into a special account.
一名沒有賽艇經驗的學生成為南加大賽艇校隊成員，此前別人在船上的照片被提交上去證明她的專長。她的父母給一個特殊帳戶匯入了20萬美元。
In a major college admissions scandal that laid bare the elaborate lengths some wealthy parents will go to get their children into competitive American universities, federal prosecutors charged 50 people on Tuesday in a brazen scheme to buy spots in the freshman classes at Yale, Stanford and other big name schools.
在一場重大高校招生醜聞中，聯邦檢察官周二對50人提出指控，他們涉嫌參與通過行賄「購買」耶魯、斯坦福及其它名校新生入學資格的無恥騙局。醜聞揭露出，一些富人家長為讓孩子進入有競爭力的美國名校可以如何不擇手段。
Thirty-three well-heeled parents were charged in the case, including Hollywood celebrities and prominent business leaders, and prosecutors said there could be additional indictments to come.
33名富有的父母在該案中被指控，包括好萊塢明星和著名商界領袖，檢察官表示還會有進一步的起訴。
Also implicated were top college athletic coaches, who were accused of accepting millions of dollars to help admit undeserving students to a wide variety of colleges, from the University of Texas at Austin to Wake Forest and Georgetown, by suggesting they were top athletes.
從德州大學奧斯汀分校(University of Texas at Austin)到維克森林(Wake Forest)再到喬治城(Georgetown)，牽連其中的還有頂尖高校的體育教練，他們被控收受數百萬美元，將不具資格的學生認定為高水平運動員，以便將他們錄取。
The parents included the television star Lori Loughlin and her husband, the fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli; the actress Felicity Huffman; and William E. McGlashan Jr., a partner at the private equity firm TPG, officials said.
官員表示，涉案家長包括電視明星羅莉·洛夫林(Lori Loughlin)和丈夫、服裝設計師莫辛莫·賈恩魯裡(Mossimo Giannulli)、演員菲麗賽迪·霍夫曼(Felicity Huffman)以及私募股權公司太平洋投資集團(TPG)合伙人小威廉·E·麥格拉申(William E. McGlashan Jr.)。
The scheme unveiled Tuesday was stunning in its breadth and audacity. It was the Justice Department’s largest ever college admissions prosecution, a sprawling investigation that involved 200 agents nationwide and resulted in charges against 50 people in six states.
周二披露的這一騙局牽連之廣、行事之大膽甚為驚人。作為司法部有史以來最大的高校招生訴訟，這項大規模的調查涉及全國200家代理機構，導致6州50人被控告。
The charges also underscored how college admissions have become so cutthroat and competitive that some have sought to break the rules. The authorities say the parents of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most privileged students sought to buy spots for their children at top universities, not only cheating the system, but potentially cheating other hard-working students out of a chance at a college education.
這一波控告還突顯出高校招生已變得如此殘酷激烈，以致於一些人已尋求破壞規則。當局表示，全國最富有、最優越的一些學生家長尋求為孩子在頂尖高校「購買」席位，這不僅是作弊，還可能導致其他刻苦努力的學生失去接受大學教育的機會。
In many of the cases, prosecutors said, the students were not aware that their parents were doctoring their test scores and lying to get them into school. Federal prosecutors did not charge any students or universities with wrongdoing.
檢察官稱，在很多情況下，學生並不知道家長是通過篡改考試分數或撒謊讓他們進的學校。聯邦檢察官沒有控告任何學生或高校有不當之處。
「The parents are the prime movers of this fraud,」 Andrew E. Lelling, the United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said Tuesday during a news conference. Mr. Lelling said that those parents used their wealth to create a separate and unfair admissions process for their children.
「家長是這起欺詐案的首要行動者，」美國麻薩諸塞州聯邦檢察官安德魯·E·萊林(Andrew E. Lelling)周二在新聞發布會上說。他說這些家長利用他們的財富為自己的孩子創造單獨的、不公正的入學通道。
「The real victims in this case are the hardworking students」 who were displaced in the admissions process by 「far less qualified students and their families who simply bought their way in,」 Mr. Lelling said.
「該案真正的受害者是刻苦努力的學生們」，他們被「資質遠不如他們、由家人用金錢開道的學生」在錄取過程中擠佔了位置，萊林說。
At the center of the sweeping financial crime and fraud case was William Singer, the founder of a college preparatory business called the Edge College & Career Network, also known as The Key.
這起龐大財務犯罪和詐騙案的中心人物是威廉·辛格(William Singer)，他是又稱「鑰匙」(The Key)的大學升學機構邊緣大學與職業網絡(Edge College & Career Network)的創始人。
The authorities said Mr. Singer used The Key and its nonprofit arm, Key Worldwide Foundation, which is based in Newport Beach, Calif., to help students cheat on their standardized tests, and to pay bribes to the coaches who could get them into college with fake athletic credentials.
當局稱辛格利用「鑰匙」及其位於加州紐波特海灘的非盈利分支機構「鑰匙全球基金會」(Key Worldwide Foundation)，幫助學生在標準化考試中作弊，並賄賂體育教練，後者能讓學生以虛假的體育證書進入大學。
Mr. Singer used The Key as a front, allowing parents to funnel money into an account without having to pay any federal taxes.
辛格用「鑰匙」做幌子，使家長們得以將資金轉入帳戶而無需支付任何聯邦稅費。
Parents paid Mr. Singer about $25 million from 2011 until February 2019 to bribe coaches and university administrators to designate their children as recruited athletes, which effectively ensured their admission, according to the indictment.
起訴書稱，從2011年到2019年2月，家長們向辛格支付了約2500萬美元，用以行賄教練和大學行政人員，以將他們的孩子指定為體育特長生，有效確保他們的錄取。
周二，威廉·辛格出現在波士頓的約翰·約瑟夫·莫克利聯邦法院。 KATHERINE TAYLOR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Mr. Singer appeared in federal court in Boston on Tuesday afternoon and pleaded guilty to counts of racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of justice.
辛格於周二下午在波士頓聯邦法院出庭，承認犯有共謀敲詐勒索罪、洗錢罪、共謀欺詐美國罪和妨礙司法公正罪。
Sitting very still and wearing a dark suit, he described how he arranged for students』 SAT and ACT results to be falsified by sending them to take the exams in Houston or Los Angeles, where he had bribed test administrators. He described the students as believing they were taking the tests legitimately, but said that his test proctor would correct their answers afterward. Mr. Singer said he would tell the proctor the score he wanted the student to get, and he would achieve that score exactly.
他身穿深色西裝，一動不動地坐著，描述了自己如何就學生的SAT和ACT成績作假——他把學生們送到休斯敦或洛杉磯參加考試，並賄賂那裡的考試管理人員。他說，學生們認為自己的考試是合法的，但是監考老師會在考試結束後糾正他們的答案。辛格說，他會告訴監考者他希望學生得到的分數，他會準確地得到這個分數。
In his testimony, he referred to his bribery and money laundering schemes as 「a side door」 method of admission.
在證詞中，他將自己的賄賂和洗錢體系稱為「一道側門」。
「If I can make the comparison, there is a front door of getting in where a student just does it on their own, and then there’s a back door where people go to institutional advancement and make large donations, but they’re not guaranteed in,」 Mr. Singer said. 「And then I created a side door that guaranteed families to get in. So that was what made it very attractive to so many families, is I created a guarantee.」
「如果打個比方，有一道正門是讓學生通過自己的努力進去的，還有一道後門是讓人們通過學校的募捐系統，捐一大筆錢，但這些都不能保證他們進得去，」他說。「然後我設計了一道側門，向那些家庭保證他們都能進去。所以這對很多家庭來說非常有吸引力，因為我創造了一個保證。」
One of the prosecutors, Eric S. Rosen, said that Mr. Singer had in some cases falsified students』 ethnicities and other biographical details to take advantage of affirmative action.
檢察官之一埃裡克·S·羅森(Eric S. Rosen)說，辛格在一些案件中偽造了學生的種族和其他履歷細節，以便利用平權行動。
Mr. Singer also described how, after he became a cooperating witness and was told by the prosecutors and the F.B.I. that he could not talk to anyone about the case, he tipped off several families that he was wired and warned them not to incriminate themselves in conversations with him.
辛格還描述了在他成為合作證人後，檢察官和聯邦調查局告訴他不能與任何人談論這起案件，之後他向幾個家庭透露自己被竊聽了，並警告他們不要在同他談話時自證其罪。
The judge set sentencing for June 19, and Mr. Singer was released on a $500,000 bond.
法官將判決日期定在6月19日，辛格以50萬美元的保釋金獲釋。
Most elite universities recruit student athletes and use different criteria to admit them, often with lower grades and standardized test scores than other students.
大多數精英大學都招收學生運動員，在這個過程中採用不同的錄取標準，對這些學生的成績和標準化考試分數要求往往低於其他學生。
Mr. Singer helped parents go to great lengths to falsely present their children as the sort of top-flight athletes that coaches would want to recruit.
辛格幫家長費盡心機把孩子偽造成教練希望招募的那種頂級運動員。
Mr. Singer fabricated athletic 「profiles」 of students to submit with their applications, which contained teams the students had not played on and honors they had not won. Some parents supplied 「staged photographs of their children engaged in athletic activity,」 according to the authorities; Mr. Singer’s associates also photoshopped the faces of the applicants onto images of athletes found on the internet.
辛格偽造學生的體育「簡歷」，連同入學申請一起提交，其中包括學生沒有加入過的球隊和他們從沒獲得過的榮譽。當局稱，一些家長提供了「孩子參加體育活動的登場照片」；辛格的同事還把申請者的臉用電腦合成到網上找來的運動員照片上。
「This is an extreme, unsubtle and illegal example of the increasingly common practice of using money to get an edge in the race for a place in an elite university,」 said Christopher Hunt, who runs College Essay Mentor, a consulting service for applicants.
「利用金錢在精英大學的入學競爭中獲得優勢的做法越來越普遍，本案就是一個極端的、公然的、非法的例子，」為申請者提供諮詢服務的「大學入學導師」(College Essay Mentor)公司負責人克里斯多福·亨特(Christopher Hunt)說。
數十人被控通過詐騙手段讓學生入讀頂級大學，包括南加州大學。 ROZETTE RAGO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
In one example detailed in an indictment, the parents of a student applying to Yale paid Mr. Singer $1.2 million to help her get admitted. The student, who did not play soccer, was described as the co-captain of a prominent club soccer team in Southern California in order to be recruited for the Yale women’s soccer team. The head coach of the Yale team, Rudolph Meredith, was bribed at least $400,000 to recruit the student.
在起訴書中詳細描述的一個例子裡，一名申請耶魯大學的學生的父母向辛格支付了120萬美元，幫助她被錄取。這名學生從沒有踢過足球，卻被描述為南加州一個著名足球俱樂部的隊長之一，以便被耶魯大學女子足球隊招募，辛格為此向耶魯大學足球隊的主教練魯道夫·梅雷迪思(Rudolph Meredith)行賄至少40萬美元。
After the profile was created, Mr. Singer sent the fake profile to Mr. Meredith, who then designated her as a recruit, even though he knew the student did not play competitive soccer, according to the complaint.
起訴書稱，在創建該學生的個人簡介後，辛格把這份假的簡介發給了梅雷迪思，隨後，梅雷迪思儘管明知該生無法參加足球競技，還是指定她為招生對象。
In its investigation, known internally as Operation Varsity Blues, the government focused on the 33 indicted parents. Those parents were willing to pay between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, which went to college entrance exam administrators who helped their children cheat on them by giving them answers, correcting their work or even letting third parties falsely pose as their children and take the tests in their stead, according to the indictment.
在內部稱之為「校隊藍調行動」(Operation Varsity Blues)的調查中，政府將重點放在了33名遭到起訴的家長身上。根據起訴書，這些父母為每項考試支付1.5萬美元到7.5萬美元不等的費用給入學考試負責人員，那些人幫他們的孩子作弊，向他們提供正確答案、修改他們的答案，甚至讓他人冒名頂替參加考試。
Mr. Singer instructed at least one parent, Mr. McGlashan, to claim that his son had learning disabilities in order to gain extended time for him to take his college entrance exam alone, over two days instead of one, according to court documents.
法庭文件顯示，辛格至少讓其中一位家長麥格拉申聲稱自己的兒子有學習障礙，以便讓他有更長時間獨自考試，時間從一天延長到兩天。
The government said that Mr. McGlashan’s son was told to take the exam at one of two test centers where Mr. Singer worked with test administrators who had been bribed to allow students to cheat. And Mr. Singer told Mr. McGlashan to fabricate a reason, such as a wedding, for why their children would need to take the test in one of those locations.
政府表示，麥格拉申的兒子被告知要在兩個考試中心選一個參加考試，而辛格跟其中一個考試中心的管理人員有勾連，這些人收受賄賂，允許學生作弊。辛格讓麥格拉申編造理由，比如要參加婚禮，來解釋為什麼他們的孩子只能在其中一個地方參加考試。
Mr. McGlashan’s son was unaware of the scheme, according to court documents.
根據法庭文件，麥克拉申的兒子不知道這個計劃。
Mr. McGlashan did not respond to an email seeking comment. TPG said that it had placed Mr. McGlashan on indefinite administrative leave effective immediately as a result of the charges.
麥格拉申沒有回覆請求置評的郵件。德州太平洋集團表示已基於這些指控將麥格拉申無限期停職，立即生效。
刑事起訴書節選顯示了一幅為取得大學錄取資格而進行了篡改的照片。
When Mr. Singer explained the scheme last June to Gordon R. Caplan, co-chairman of the global law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Mr. Caplan laughed and said, 「And it works?」 according to a transcript of a recorded phone conversation between the two men captured in a court-authorized wiretap.
根據法庭授權的電話竊聽記錄，去年6月，辛格向國際律師事務所威爾基-法爾和加拉赫(Willkie Farr & Gallagher)的聯席主席戈登·卡普蘭(Gordon Caplan)解釋有關計劃時，卡普蘭笑著說，「這能行嗎？」
Mr. Singer told Mr. Caplan that his daughter would not know that her standardized test scores had been faked.
辛格告訴卡普蘭，他的女兒不會知道她的標準化考試成績是假的。
「Nobody knows what happens,」 Mr. Singer said, according to the transcript of the call. 「She feels great about herself. She got a test score, and now you’re actually capable for help getting into a school. Because the test score’s no longer an issue. Does that make sense?」
「沒有人會知道，」根據那份電話竊聽記錄，辛格說。「她自我感覺很好。她考了個好成績，現在你可以幫她進好學校了。因為考試成績不再是個問題。聽上去挺合理的吧？」
「That does,」 Mr. Caplan said. According to prosecutors, Mr. Caplan paid $75,000 for the service.
「是的，」卡普蘭說。檢方稱，卡普蘭為這項服務支付了7.5萬美元。
A spokeswoman for Mr. Caplan and Willkie Farr did not respond to an email seeking comment.
卡普蘭和律所的發言人沒有回覆請求置評的郵件。
Universities were quick to respond to the charges on Tuesday. According to the indictment, Stanford University’s head sailing coach, John Vandemoer, took financial contributions to the sailing program from an intermediary in exchange for agreeing to recommend two prospective students for admission.
周二，各大學迅速對這些指控做出回應。起訴書稱，史丹福大學(Stanford University)帆船總教練約翰·范德默爾(John Vandemoer)從一個中間人那裡收取了帆船項目的資助款，作為交換，他同意為兩名學生做入學推薦。
Stanford said Tuesday that Mr. Vandemoer had been fired. The University of Texas at Austin released a statement Tuesday saying that its men’s tennis coach, Michael Center, has been placed on leave. And at U.S.C., Donna Heinel, a top athletic director, and Jovan Vavic, the men’s and women’s water polo coach, were terminated. Ms. Heinel received more than $1.3 million in bribes and Mr. Vavic about $250,000 according to federal prosecutors.
斯坦福周二表示，範德默爾已被解僱。德克薩斯大學奧斯丁分校(The University of Texas at Austin)周二發表聲明，稱該校的男子網球教練麥可·山特(Michael Center)已被安排休假。南加州大學的運動項目高管唐娜·海內爾(Donna Heinel)和男女水球隊教練約萬·瓦維奇(Jovan Vavic)已被解僱。據聯邦檢察官稱，海內爾受賄130多萬美元，瓦維奇受賄約25萬美元。
In a letter to the college community, Wanda M. Austin, the interim president of the University of Southern California, said, 「It is immensely disappointing that individuals would abuse their position at the university this way.」
南加大臨時校長旺達·M·奧斯汀(Wanda M. Austin)在給全校的一封信中說，「個別人竟然會以這樣的方式濫用自己在大學的職位，令人深感失望。」
Like other college administrators, Dr. Austin said she did not believe that admissions officers were aware of the scheme or took part in it, and she described the university as a victim.
與其他大學的管理人員一樣，奧斯汀表示，她不相信招生官員知道或參與了這個計劃，她把該校描述為受害者。
作者：JENNIFER MEDINA, KATIE BENNER, KATE TAYLOR
Anemona Hartocollis、Marc Tracy和Matthew Goldstein對本文有報導貢獻。
翻譯：李建芳、晉其角、杜然