Hot Pockets heiress Michelle Janavs sentenced to 5 months prison for college admissions cheating scandal. Desperate bid to hold on to fading American dream at all small costs.
Because the risk continues to far outweigh the punishment.
An heiress to the Hot Pockets microwaveable snack fortune was sentenced Tuesday to serve five months in prison for trying to buy her daughters’ way into college as part of the nationwide college admissions scandal.
Michelle Janavs, 49, whose family invented Hot Pockets in 1983 before selling the company, was also sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine when she learned her fate in Boston federal court.
Janavs sentencing on Tuesday follows her follows the heiress previously pleading guilty in October to conspiring to commit fraud and money laundering the LATimes reports.
Using one’s wealth to block others advancement in society:
‘It is certainly true that the vast majority of parents truly love their children and want their children to get into their college of choice,’ said U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton as he handed down his sentence, USA Today reported.
Which is true of all parents – the only difference, well to do parents are often the ones who are able to use the mechanisms of society (usually in the form of large sizable school donations) usually not available to most to help grease facilitate their children’s safe passage in the corridors of the American dream quickly slipping away illusion.
‘But those same parents don’t try to brazenly get their children into a side-door by bribing college officials,’ Justice Gorton went on to say. ‘They love their children as much as you do.’
Love or bribe having nearly becoming synonymous in the desperate bid of even multi millionaire parents hoping to make sure their offspring claim the few slots available at success – slots usually, but not always time stamped with the addresses of ivy league colleges.
Added Justice Gorton, ‘Her actions damaged the entire system of education in this country. The monetary value of the harm she caused is incalculable.’
John Littrell, attorney for Hot Pocket heiress Michelle Janavs, addresses reporters with Janavs standing behind him after she was sentenced to 5 months in prison in the nation’a college admissions scandal. “This crime does not define who she is.” pic.twitter.com/MW8HGwqXoo
— Joey Garrison (@joeygarrison) February 25, 2020
The jet set fixing their offspring’s place in society:
Janavs sentencing follows the heiress admitting to paying $100,000 to have someone fix the answers on her two daughters’ ACT exams.
Not content, the ‘interceding mother’ also agreed to spend another $200,000 (cause who doesn’t have pocket money to spare….?) to have one daughter recruited as a beach volleyball player at the University of Southern California — only to be arrested before her daughter could be admitted and had yet coughed up all the cash, prosecutors said.
The payouts were sent to corrupt ‘college advisor’ William ‘Rick’ Singer and his pals via his phony charitable organization, the Key Worldwide Foundation.
Prosecutors had sought 21 months in prison, saying Janavs was a repeated and active participant in the scheme. The judge said he would have sentenced her to a year had it not been for ‘your heartfelt remorse’ and ‘good deeds.’
Well heeled parents doubling up on children’s ascent in America society:
Janavs is one of a slew of well-heeled parents and celebrities arrested for paying Singer to secure their kids’ placement at top schools by inflating their athletic or academic bona fides.
While most well to do families prefer guaranteeing (as much as possible) their children’s place in dominant society by making sizable donations to a bevy of causes and schools, some have also been unable to resist the too easy temptations of quick payoffs to get more immediate results.
Reports bloomberg: ‘Conceivably, a family that endowed a top-tier business school with $30 million wouldn’t need a side door. Yet Janavs admits that she agreed to pay $300,000 to have a proctor correct her daughters’ standardized test scores and to promote one as a beach volleyball player.’
Also slated to appear in court in Boston this week are reality star, Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, who are accused of paying $500,000 to get their daughters into the University of Southern California.
In Janavs’ case, Singer enlisted a corrupt test administrator, Igor Dvorskiy as well as a crooked proctor, Mark Riddell, to review and correct her daughter’s answers in exchange for bribes, prosecutors say.
All three have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
It remains to be seen if any of the parents will receive sentencing befitting the crimes of ‘robbing’ more well deserving students who had their place in American ascent effectively stolen from them- as parents countrywide, rich or poor, increasingly fret about their children’s ability to live the once attainable American dream.
