It turns out that the individual who told federal authorities about the $25 million college-bribery scam reportedly did so because he was being investigated for securities fraud.
The Securities and Exchange Commission named Morrie Tobin, who attended Yale and has three children who have also studied there, in a recent examination of four people tied to a fraud scheme involving stocks in two drug firms.
As part of the investigation, Tobin “offered a tip to federal authorities in an effort to obtain leniency,” according to a story in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.
After leading the authorities to then-women’s soccer coach Ruby Meredith, who allegedly was seeking a bribe from Tobin to get one of his children into Yale, Tobin met with Meredith while wearing a wire.
Later, investigators uncovered dozens of parents who allegedly worked with a college consultant on fake athletic profiles, ways to cheat on standardized tests and the bribing of coaches at schools like Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California.
Although about 50 people have been charged in the scandal, Tobin was not. After reaching a plea deal in November, the Los Angeles resident is expected to be sentenced in the SEC fraud matter in June, the Wall Street Journal said.
Starting in 2013, Tobin worked with two attorneys employed by a global tax firm and with a Swiss citizen to hide his control of Environmental Packaging Technologies and CURE Pharmaceutical. After the shares were moved offshore, Tobin sold shares but did not disclose the trades to the SEC or his ownership to investors.
“What appeared to be ordinary trading by unaffiliated investors was actually a massive dump of shares by a company insider and his team seeking to profit at the expense of defrauded investors,” according to the SEC complaint.
Tobin later said he would plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud.
Tobin went to Yale in the 1980s but later transferred to the University of Vermont, according to the Journal. One of his children graduated from the Ivy League college in 2015, while two others currently study there.
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