Ex-USC admissions official to plead guilty to running scam to admit unqualified Chinese students

In exchange for money, a former admissions official at USC helped graduate students from China gain acceptance to the school by submitting doctored transcripts, fraudulent letters of recommendation and bogus personal statements in their applications, according to a plea agreement filed in federal court.

Hiu Kit David Chong, who worked in USC’s Office of Graduate Admission from 2008 to 2016, agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud in an agreement signed last month and unsealed Wednesday.

Chong’s admissions scheme was separate altogether from the one perpetrated by William “Rick” Singer, a Newport Beach consultant who bribed USC officials, sneaked his star-studded clientele’s children into the school with bogus applications and rigged test scores, and brought, in one USC lawyer’s words, “a media circus” upon the campus south of downtown Los Angeles.