BOSTON – A former employee of the Houston Independent School District was sentenced Monday in connection with her involvement in a scheme to use bribery and fraud to facilitate cheating on the ACT and SAT exams.
Niki D. Williams, 46, of Houston, Texas, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani to one year of probation and ordered to pay forfeiture of $12,500. The government recommended a sentence of six months in prison and one year of supervised release. In September 2020, Williams pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud and honest services wire fraud and mail fraud.
Williams administered the SAT and ACT exams at the public high school in Houston where she worked. In exchange for bribe payments directed to her by co-conspirators William “Rick” Singer and Martin Fox, and in violation of her duty of honest services to the ACT and the College Board, Williams allowed another co-conspirator, Mark Riddell, to secretly take ACT and SAT tests in place of the children of Singer’s clients or to replace their exam answers with his own corrected answers. Williams then returned the falsified exams to the ACT and College Board for scoring.
Singer, Riddell and Fox previously pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the government’s investigation.
