
Man Who Bribed Son into Penn Guilty in $1.3B Health Fraud - jonwachob91
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-05/man-who-bribed-son-into-penn-guilty-in-1-3-billion-health-fraud
======
cs702
One of the things that struck me the most as I read about the college bribery
scandal is that many if not all the parents involved acted as if bribing
people, falsifying records, doctoring photographs, etc. were things that
"everyone else was doing to get ahead in the admissions game" and therefore
they could justify and rationalize it as necessary. At a minimum, they can at
least claim they did it for their children.

I don't know how anyone could ever justify and rationalize stealing money from
the elderly and taxpayers. It seems so wrong; indefensible, really. Jeez...

~~~
freen
Con artists and criminals think everyone is corrupt.

If you know someone who thinks everyone is corrupt, or self serving, well...
that’s one way people rationalize their own unethical behavior.

The meaner you are, the more assholes you meet.

When someone says “liberals are just virtue signaling” they probably are a
horrible person because they don’t believe humans can behave
ethically/altruistically.

~~~
XaoDaoCaoCao
>They probably are a horrible person

Or they observe a commonality in human nature, that signaling virtue is a real
phenomenon in the competition of a certain species of social apes. And that
espousing such views doesnt guarantee their feasibility nor does it mean that
the signaler has actually arrived at an ethical understanding of the subject.

EX: Used to be vegan. Saw how monstrous the self-righteous were. Realized that
promoting the development of "good", intelligent, ethical, and free people was
far more helpful than being an individual in a society of millions of
individuals. And maybe a society of such people would be far more
conscientious, especially in regards to the treatment of animals, than what we
have now.

Also that psychopathic/sociopathic actors could negate my puny individual
protest and competing for social rank over them would probably be more helpful
than being an "individual" in the liberal sense

~~~
blahblahthrow
Wait so you stopped being vegan to ... protest the fact that some vegans are
self-righteous? Do you also drive a V8 to protest the fact that some people
with Teslas are smug?

~~~
XaoDaoCaoCao
It was more of a realization that those people placed far too much importance
on their individual "purity", and their distance from the "impure" masses than
effecting any systematic change.

When you think of the entire chain of supply and logistics involved in running
the modern world, you are inexorably meshed with the world of evil and the
"impure". As I said, it does far more good for ethical entities to take rein
of this thrashing beast than to posture purity. You might even have to be
cunning, brutal, and cold to ward off those who simply don't give a damn.
Especially the psychopathic and sociopathic agents.

~~~
meko
This is all a ton of pontification without arriving at any sort if logical
conclusion. You used to be vegan but stopped because you didn't feel like you
could enact change with your diet? Weak .

~~~
XaoDaoCaoCao
Of course. It'd be dumb to think you have any direct effect when you're
inmeshed in an "impure" network.

The world doesn't exist to provide a nice solution set where you can have the
conveniences of modern living without the massive externalities of war (to
secure and maintain logistical routes) and pollution. To be quite honest, I
think the world is inherently a tragedy to those who seek to do only "good".

Helping potential moral agents, aka your "neighbors" (physical or spiritual),
with better leverage in the social ape rat race has more impact. You strive to
throw off the worse leaders of men and install the better leaders of men.

I was going to go on but forgive me for balking out of a lengthy explanation
that isn't structured yet. It's been a while since someone has challenged my
stance like that and my intuitons need more editing, so to speak.

------
dr_
This is stunning in its scope and made me wonder in what other developed
country is it even possible for a citizen to defraud its government of over 1
billion dollars?

The skilled nursing system in this country is broken, with no meaningful
oversight other than an annual inspection which everyone knows is coming.
Lengths of stay are unnecessarily long and the quality of care is unbelievably
sub par. Despite all of this, fraud at this level is pretty astounding, and
should serve as a wake up call for the government to more aggressively monitor
all facilities, or outsource monitoring from the States to private agencies.

~~~
anigbrowl
You can run a company that has to pay $1.7 billion in fines for defrauding
medicare and still be governor of Florida and (as of last January) a sitting
US Senator:
[https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/fl...](https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/florida-
democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/)

~~~
joe_the_user
Indeed,

The phrase "Robber barons" from 19th century was hardly overstated. America is
once again reaching a stage where a large enough fraud and criminality offers
an exit strategy into the ruling class.

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JMTQp8lwXL
Why do wealthy people need to even buy admission for their children into elite
schools? Don't they have enough independent wealth to support not only
themselves, but their children, as well?

With that kind of money, their children really don't need to cultivate
careers... and even if they wanted to, surely they could do it the old
fashioned way? And if they fail, parents can bail them out?

Or is it primarily driven by greed, and the parents want the kids to make a
lot of money, so the family has even greater wealth?

~~~
alexpetralia
I think they do it for the prestige/status. This is generally what people want
wealth for anyway, above a certain life-sustaining amount.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
What is the point of prestige/status if it isn't even real? It's like they're
sending their kids to Stanford for the Instagram likes they'll get.

~~~
scarejunba
Huh, the prestige is most definitely real. The status is real. If your kids go
to Harvard or Stanford, people will assume they're smart and you're a good
parent.

~~~
lordnacho
But it's pretty fragile. You can imagine after this scandal some prestigious
employer, say Goldmans or McKinsey declaring that they want to see on
everyone's applications whether they are a legacy, small sport scholar, or
child of a rich donor.

In fact that might benefit society an awful lot.

------
cannabis_sam
The fundamental problem here is that what we call ”education” is largely a way
to place people into a hiearchy of worth, NOT a way of transmiting knowledge
or further peoples understanding of the world.

Rich people see the reality of this and of course want to help their kids
ensure a comfortable place in this hierarchy, while the hoi poloi still
think’s about getting an education and working hard lol

Maybe we should ask ourselves why/how these people ended up with so much
economic power in the first place?

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sct202
"In the revised indictment of Esformes, prosecutors said he illicitly gave the
coach (Penn basketball coach) $74,000 in the form of cash, a recruiting trip
to Miami and a ride on a private jet in 2013 and 2014."
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/celtics-a...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/celtics-
assistant-coach-pleads-guilty-in-money-laundering-case)

Seems more affordable than I thought, considering in the other scandals people
were dropping $500k+.

------
eatbitseveryday
> Esformes made off with at least $37 million for himself from 1998 to 2016,
> according to prosecutors, using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle of
> fancy cars and a $360,000 watch.

18 years this went on?? This is what surprised me the most.

~~~
mikeash
There’s little motivation for law enforcement to search for white collar
crime, and little support for prosecuting it.

Look at the indictments produced by the Mueller investigation. Politics aside,
some of those people were doing real shady shit for years, and they would have
gotten away with it cleanly had they not gotten entangled with the campaign.

~~~
pm90
Counter-argument: none of the shady shit they'd done had enough of an effect
to interest law enforcement, right until they got control of the Presidency.

It seems to make sense to me now. All the fear mongering over immigrants and
drugs flooding across the border when an American company (Purdue Pharma)
engineered the worst actual drug epidemic in generations makes me wonder about
the effectiveness of spending literally billions on the "War on Drugs" while
not addressing the real issues.

~~~
mikeash
I don’t think that’s a counter argument, just a specific example of what I
said in my first paragraph.

~~~
pm90
What you say in your first paragraph:

> There’s little motivation for law enforcement to search for white collar
> crime, and little support for prosecuting it.

How is what I said a specific example of this?

~~~
mikeash
Law enforcement wasn’t interested in their shady shit before, because they
weren’t motivated to look for it, and if they had found it, it probably
wouldn’t have been prosecuted anyway.

------
musicale
It is well known that colleges often give special consideration to children of
alumni, largely for the purpose of encouraging and sustaining financial
contributions. They usually justify it by noting that it brings money into the
school and allows them to offer better financial aid.

I think they would do well to simply state some students are admitted based on
whether they bring something worthwhile to the college, including but not
limited to: academic achievement, artistic accomplishment, athletic prowess,
background diversity, gender balance, interest diversity, and financial
contribution/desirability, but if students graduate from the school then they
have probably proven that they are at least minimally qualified to attend.

It has never been a level playing field, and there are always qualified
students who are rejected for reasons completely beyond their control. One bit
of consolation for those rejected from all of their elite schools is that it
may be easier to excel at a non-elite college, improving your chances for
admission to an elite graduate program. And seriously, who really wants to pay
$50K+ a year to a college/country club only to be saddled with crippling
student loan debt after graduation, debt that even bankruptcy cannot expunge?

------
shimmrs
What I never understood about the college admissions scandal is why those rich
parents were SO worried about their kids getting into some good college. They
were rich! These kids would be 100% fine (actually more than fine) even if
they didn't go to ANY college at all, and just stayed home and played video
games all day!

The second thing I didn't get is why they would spend so much money on USC,
which is not even a top school.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_why they would spend so much money on USC, which is not even a top school_

It might not be "a top school" by whatever criteria you're using, but it's a
very good school. Depending on what major you're interested in, it's very much
elite.

E.g. here's the title of a recent article it took me 10 seconds of googling to
find: _USC Film School Turns 90: Famous Alums Gather to Share Memories of a
Hollywood Incubator_ [1]

Some other factoids:[2]

    
    
       Admission Standards  Elite
       Acceptance Rate      16%
       generally admitting students who score in the top 7 percent.
    

[1] [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/30-usc-film-
schoo...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/30-usc-film-school-alums-
gather-90th-anniversary-1190638) [2]
[https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/california/university...](https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/california/university-
of-southern-california/admission/)

~~~
JetSpiegel
> Acceptance Rate 16%

As the scandal proves, that was way too much. Either that, or they were
kicking out deserving poor people to make room for the bribed kids.

