Dick Wolfe gives us a twofer ("two for one") in ripping stories from headlines:
- We get the college bribery scam inspired by the travails of Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman as a result of "Operation Varsity Blues". The investigation was instigated at the behest of Morrie Tobin, who wanted leniency in a security fraud case he help masterminded. The path to college acceptance occured in one of four ways: 1) athlete recruit; 2) payment to certain college coaches/ officials ; 3) payment to ACT and SAT proctors ; 4) Encouraged prospective applicants to take test out-of-state and accompanied by a "personal assistant" at a "accommodated test site". The parents of these applicants funneled money into a sham charity, headed by William "Rick" Singer, so he could pay off his cohorts to weasel their kids into school.
- We also have a fraudulent medical tech company run by a woman CEO. Theranos (derived from a combination of the words from Greek meaning "therapy" and "diagnosis" respectively), which was ran by Elizabeth Holmes raised $700 million for blood test tech that turned out to not work. The CEO goes on trial in August 2020.
Ripped from the headlines, a Dick Wolf trademark: The college student's dad admits to committing fraud to get him admitted. This aired as Lori Loughlin and her husband (among several others) were either awaiting trial or had plead out for doing something similar to get their kids admitted to college.