Federal authorities found that former Temple University Dean of Students Martin Robbins fabricated and manipulated records that placed him high in the university’s national rankings in certain years, prosecutors said.
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Robbins was previously known to the FBI as a leader of a college application fraud ring that generated thousands of fake online ‘test-cheats’ during the 2014-15 application season. He and a group of friends were caught red-handed with their ‘test-cheats’ while they were preparing for the SAT and ACT.
Federal investigators said Robbins created vast lists of millions of student grades, behaviors and other data over the past 20 years and then filled out applications with fake data. The official U.S. News and World Report rankings depend on verifiable information, such as SAT and ACT scores and transcripts, and Robbins, authorities said, would wait until the early hours of the morning to create and submit altered documents.
FIVE TOOK FEDS’ ‘TEST-COOKING’ CASE to Court
Last November, the three original defendants accused of helping Robbins along with a self-admitted middleman agreed to plead guilty to racketeering and submitted written documents to the government admitting their participation in the scheme. They hoped that by taking their case to trial, Robbins and his partners in crime would get off with light sentences.
The five victims of the scam took their case to court Tuesday at the suggestion of Robbins’ attorney, who had argued that Robbins should also be allowed to stand trial. Federal prosecutors disagreed and said Robbins should not get a fair trial.
Prosecutors said Robbins provided false information for college applications about 42 times, including claiming he “graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the College of Agriculture,” “received honors” and “received a Masters of Science.”
According to prosecutors, Robbins used the manipulation to boost his own list of accomplishments, as well as that of his students.
Authorities said Robbins doctored key information about his years at the university, providing errors and omissions throughout his application that boosted the ranking of his Harvard, Yale and Stanford-bound students.
Robbins had previously made statements that admitted to the scheme to friends, prosecutors said. He filed his official WIC applications from 1998 through 2000 stating, “Martin served as Dean of Students for a campus that ranked No. 2 in the country. I am a 1999 graduate of a major university and I have provided admissions information, both for myself and for my son.”
But federal prosecutors said Robbins’ Harvard petition contained errors that inflated his college grade point average and his SAT score. He also left out “statements of work” that earned him his master’s degree and said he had no undergraduate degrees or professional diplomas, according to prosecutors.
Robbins was sentenced to 31 months in prison and will have to pay restitution in the amount of $416,500 for all 42 years of the scheme he perpetrated.
The conspirators:
Darrin Brown
Mohammed Abdullah Ali
Russell Dorman
Arthur Farrell
Colin Pollard
Robbins
John Wickliffe
Jonathan Colvin
Gabriel McNally
Christopher Sugrue
Alma Ashraf