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Tanya McDowell is an American woman who served five years in prison after a plea deal related to falsifying her residence to change school districts. McDowell and her six-year-old son were homeless, McDowell didn't have an address to get her son into a good school, so she lied on admission papers to ensure her son could have an education. McDowell has said she was never informed of the zoning rules in place in Norwalk, CT and had no knowledge that this would send her to prison. After the school board found out about the lie, McDowell's son was removed from the school. McDowell was then charged for five years in prison on the accounts or federal larceny as well as other criminal charges. She was also arrested and charged for offering drugs and prostitutes to undercover police officers. McDowell was charged with seven counts in total. McDowell had a previous record of bank robbery and weapons crimes. [1]
McDowell has received national media attention from articles and viral social media posts juxtaposing aspects of her case with Felicity Huffman's 14 day sentence for a federal crime as part of the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. [2] The misleading nature of some media attention led to a Snopes fact-checking entry which argued the Huffman and McDowell cases were not directly comparable. Felicity Huffman is an actress best known for her role on ABC's "Desperate Housewives." Huffman was charged with fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud after she paid Rick Singer $15,000 to raise her daughters SAT scores to admit her to a good university. Huffman pleaded guilty to her counts of fraud, but only set 14 days in prison, also paying a $250,000 fine. [3] McDowell and Huffman's cases are often compared because of the differences in the parties involved and how the two women were charged with different sentences for committing similar crimes under very different circumstances. Articles comparing the two cases have determined that the two cases are too different to truly compare. McDowell was facing other charges along with larceny, which gave her a longer sentence than Huffman who was just sentenced under fraud.
[4] Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney's office in Boston in Operation Varsity Blues cited McDowell's case as well as five others in their arguments for the length of prison time for convictions in the admissions scandal. Her case has also been cited in discussions of possible barriers to legitimate employment, educational zoning, university admission criteria, and increased oversight and scrutiny in public housing.
Sante Kimes also known as the Dragon Lady, was an American murderer, con artist, robber, fraudster, serial arsonist, and possible serial killer who was convicted on multiple charges, including: two murders, robbery, forgery, and slavery. Her decades-long crime spree – including throughout her marriage to millionaire Kenneth Kimes Sr., her second husband, then continuing with theft and fraud against his estate by hiding his death for years – did not end until she was arrested, at 64-years-old, for the murder of Irene Silverman in New York City. Many of these crimes were committed with the assistance of Kenneth Kimes Jr., her son. They were tried and convicted together on 118 charges, including the murder of Silverman.
William Hall Macy Jr. is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. He is two-time Emmy Award and four-time Screen Actors Guild Award winner, and has been nominated for an Academy Award, a Drama Critics' Circle Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
Lori Anne Loughlin is an American actress. From 1988 to 1995, she played Rebecca Donaldson Katsopolis on the ABC sitcom Full House, and reprised the role for its Netflix sequel Fuller House (2016–2018). Loughlin is also known for her roles of Jody Travis in The Edge of Night (1980–1983), Debbie Wilson in The CW series 90210 (2008–2012), Jennifer Shannon in the Garage Sale Mystery television film series (2013–2018), and Abigail Stanton in When Calls the Heart (2013–2019). She was a co-creator, producer, and star of the two seasons of The WB series Summerland (2004–2005).
Felicity Kendall Huffman is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Lynette Scavo in the ABC comedy-drama Desperate Housewives and her role as a transgender woman in the film Transamerica (2005). Over her career she has received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as a nomination for an Academy Award.
Anthony J. Pellicano is a high-profile Los Angeles private investigator and convicted criminal known as a Hollywood fixer. He served a term of thirty months in a federal prison for illegal possession of explosives, firearms, and a grenade. In 2008, he began serving an additional sentence for subsequent convictions for other crimes, including racketeering and wiretapping. Several other people were also convicted of crimes associated with their involvement with his illegal activities, including his actress girlfriend Sandra Will Carradine, film director John McTiernan, Beverly Hills police officer Craig Stevens, Los Angeles police sergeant Mark Arneson, and attorney Terry Christensen.
Mossimo Giannulli is an American fashion designer who founded Mossimo, a mid-range clothing company, in 1986; Giannulli sold this company to Iconix Brand Group in 2006, exactly twenty years after it was founded.
Crime in California refers to crime occurring within the U.S. state of California. The principal source of law for California criminal procedure is the California Penal Code.
Rape by deception is a situation in which the perpetrator deceives the victim into participating in a sexual act to which they would otherwise not have consented, had they not been deceived. Deception can occur in many forms, such as illusory perceptions, false statements, and false actions.
Jane Ruth Buckingham is an American author and businesswoman who founded the consumer insights firm Trendera. She is known for writing "The Modern Girl's Guide to Life" book series, which spawned the television series of the same name. She was convicted in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal.
Crime rates in Connecticut are lower than in the United States as a whole and have fallen significantly over the past decade, according to the 2021 Crime in Connecticut Report. This pattern holds true overall, and for most types of crime.
Indira Talwani is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Rose Marks is the American matriarch of a family of fraudulent psychics convicted of federal crimes in 2013 in Florida. Marks and members of her extended family operated multiple storefront businesses, four in Broward County, Florida one of which was in Fort Lauderdale, named "Astrology Life" and one in Manhattan on W. 58th Street near Central Park. They told vulnerable clients that the only solution to their problems was to give the purported psychics money. Prior to this case there was doubt that a psychic could be criminally charged. Jurors were told that fortune-telling is constitutionally protected free speech, but federal prosecutors contended Marks engaged in fraud by promising to keep clients' money safe, "cleanse" it and return it when she had no intention of returning it. The case drew widespread coverage. Charles Stack, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective, said the case and the ensuing publicity brought attention to predatory and fraudulent fortune tellers.
Annie Dookhan is an American chemist who was convicted of felony obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and other crimes relating to mass falsification of lab results. At the time of her crimes, she worked at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Drug Abuse lab, but was placed on administrative leave and subsequently quit after admitting to falsifying evidence affecting up to 34,000 cases.
William E. McGlashan Jr. is an American businessman and former private equity investor. McGlashan founded TPG Growth, the growth equity and smaller buyout investment arm of TPG Capital, a global private equity investment firm. He is also a founder and was the initial-CEO of The Rise Fund, a social impact fund he co-founded with Bono and Jeffrey Skoll.
Louis Marino Palatella is a former American football player who played for San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL).
Andrew E. Lelling is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 2017 to 2021. He is best known for leading Operation Varsity Blues, the federal investigation and prosecution of a massive nationwide college admissions scandal, He also oversaw the largest-ever prosecution of MS-13, which all but eliminated the notorious Salvadoran gang in the Boston area and the prosecution of six eBay employees involved in the eBay stalking scandal which involved the terrorizing of a middle-aged couple living in greater Boston, Massachusetts. His tenure was also marked by major gang and healthcare enforcement actions. Lelling, however, was also criticized by some as being "overzealous, grandstanding, and politically motivated" for his prosecution of a local trial judge who helped an undocumented immigrant charged with drug crimes avoid arrest by immigration authorities.
Operation Varsity Blues was the code name for the investigation into the 2019 criminal conspiracy scandal to influence undergraduate admissions decisions at several top American universities.
Douglas M. Hodge is an American businessman. He is the former CEO of Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), the world's largest bond manager. He pleaded guilty in October 2019 to the felony of conspiring to commit fraud and money laundering. In February 2020 he was sentenced to nine months in federal prison, and to pay a $750,000 fine and serve 500 hours of community service, for his participation in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal.
United States v. Elizabeth A. Holmes, et al., was a United States federal criminal fraud case against the founder of now-defunct corporation Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and its former president and COO, Ramesh Balwani. The case alleged that Holmes and Balwani perpetrated multi-million dollar wire-fraud schemes against investors and patients. They had separate jury trials.