The $10,000-a-test ringer who sat exams for 24 students over eight years
Mark Riddell conspired with William "Rick" Singer from 2011 to February 2019 to cheat on college entrance exams, either taking the SAT or ACT in a student's place using a fake photo ID, or posing as the exam proctor and correcting a student's wrong answers afterward. Singer paid him $10,000 per test; across eight years Riddell inflated the scores of 24 students on 27 exams, earning just under $240,000. He pleaded guilty in April 2019 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, honest services mail fraud, and money laundering, and was sentenced on April 8, 2022 to four months in prison, a $1,000 fine and $239,449 in forfeiture.
- Year
- 2022
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $239,449
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- College admissions bribery scams
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10-21
The facts, as recorded
- From 2011 through February 2019, Riddell conspired with Singer and others to cheat on college entrance exams in the US and Canada.
- Riddell took exams in students' places using fake photo IDs bearing the real student's name, or posed as the room's proctor and corrected wrong answers after the student finished.
- Singer had clients seek extended, untimed test sessions, often by having children falsely claim learning disabilities, then moved the exams to a public high school in Houston or a private prep school in West Hollywood.
- Test administrators Niki Williams and Igor Dvorskiy at those two locations accepted bribes of $5,000 to $10,000 per test to allow the cheating.
- Singer paid Riddell $10,000 per test; clients paid Singer $15,000 to $75,000 per test, disguised as donations to the Key Worldwide Foundation or consulting fees to his business, 'The Key.'
- Riddell inflated the scores of 24 students across 27 exams over eight years, receiving just under $240,000 in total; several students did not know their own parents had arranged the cheating.
- He pleaded guilty in April 2019 to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
- US District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton sentenced him in Boston on April 8, 2022 to four months in prison and two years of supervised release, matching what prosecutors requested.
- He was fined $1,000 and ordered to forfeit $239,449, of which the government had already collected $165,878 by the time of sentencing.
- Co-defendant Niki Williams pleaded guilty and was sentenced in December 2020 to one year of probation and $12,500 in forfeiture; co-defendant Igor Dvorskiy had also pleaded guilty and was awaiting sentencing.
Why this case matters
Riddell was the hired professional who physically carried out the test-fixing side of the scheme, not a paying client and not the operator who built it. His case shows how a single, highly specific skill, the ability to convincingly pass as someone else on a college entrance exam, was worth $10,000 a sitting for nearly a decade.
Two ways to fix a score
Riddell worked two methods. Sometimes he sat the exam himself, using a fake photo ID that carried the real student’s name alongside his own photo. Other times he was placed as the room’s official proctor and simply corrected a student’s answers once they had finished, a method that left the student’s own handwriting on the answer sheet while the content underneath it was his.
The captured test centers that made it possible
None of this worked without two compromised test sites. Singer moved exams needing this treatment to a public high school in Houston or a private prep school in West Hollywood, where administrators Niki Williams and Igor Dvorskiy were paid $5,000 to $10,000 per test to accept Riddell in the room or look away entirely.
The money, both ends
Clients paid Singer $15,000 to $75,000 per test, money that moved through his for-profit business or his sham foundation. Singer paid Riddell a flat $10,000 of that per sitting. Over 27 exams covering 24 different students, Riddell personally kept just under $240,000, a fraction of what the clients themselves paid in.
The caveat
Riddell pleaded guilty and was sentenced; these are the facts of a concluded federal case, not allegations. His co-defendant Igor Dvorskiy had pleaded guilty but was still awaiting sentencing as of the source cited above, and that outcome is not detailed further here.
Sources
- Test-taker in college admissions case sentenced. IRS Criminal Investigation. Accessed 2026-10-21. Supports: Riddell's sentence, fine and forfeiture, his guilty plea charges, the eight-year timeframe, how the fake-ID and proctor-correction tactics worked, the two captured test-center locations, the administrators' bribe amounts, the per-test fees paid by Singer and by clients, the 24-student/27-exam total, and the co-defendants' outcomes.
- Architect of nationwide college admissions scheme sentenced to more than three years in prison. IRS Criminal Investigation. Accessed 2026-10-21. Supports: Cross-reference confirming the same 2011-to-2019 scheme timeframe and the broader case context Riddell operated within.