ST. PETERSBURG, Florida – Bunny and Marge prepared the welcome packet like they do for all new residents of the Isle of Palms mobile home park. They tucked the introduction letter into a plastic sandwich bag along with a rubber Isle of Palms key chain and a $1.25 coupon for Saturday coffee and donuts in the clubhouse next to the shuffleboard court.
They added a little ribbon and dropped it at the door of the single-wide trailer on 1st Street, the one with the black Porsche SUV and white Mercedes transit van parked in the narrow driveway. “We look forward to meeting you!” the note said.
Only later would the ladies learn the notoriety of their new neighbor: Rick Singer, the mastermind-turned-informant behind the biggest college admissions scandal in U.S. history.
First, he lured dozens of wealthy, entitled parents from Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Hollywood to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribe money to get their average children into the country’s most elite universities. Then he ratted them out. And while those privileged parents have been serving months behind bars, Singer has been free on $500,000 bail after pleading guilty in 2019 to four felonies, including racketeering, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the federal government. He won’t be sentenced until mid-September after every last parent faces their final reckoning.
When William Rick Singer, now 61, turned up at the Isle of Palms in March 2021, the news flew through the…
