Feb. 26 (UPI) — A federal judge in Boston sentenced Hot Pockets heiress Michelle Janavs to five months in prison Tuesday for paying $300,000 in bribes to help her children obtain admission to college.
In addition to the prison time, she’ll also serve two years of supervised release and pay a $250,000 fine.
Janavs, 49, of Newport Coast, Calif., pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud, and one count of conspiring to commit money laundering.
She conspired with the college admissions scam mastermind, William “Rick” Singer, to secure her daughters’ admissions to college.
In October 2017, she paid $50,000 to Singer’s sham charitable foundation to have a proctor review and correct her oldest daughter’s ACT exam. She paid the same amount in February 2019 to have her youngest daughter’s ACT answers corrected.
In 2018, she paid another $200,000 to have Singer help her older daughter’s admissions process to University of Southern California. Singer created a fake profile of the daughter to have her admitted as a volleyball recruit.
Fifty-two people have so far been charged during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Operation Varsity Blues, including celebrities Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, and her husband Mossimo Giannulli.
