Adviser involved in college admissions probe revealed as Oppenheimer rep

Qui Xue Yang works at firm's Summa Group unit in Los Angeles.

A financial adviser working at a unit of Oppenheimer & Co. in Los Angeles has been identified by The Wall Street Journal as having helped facilitate a $1.2 million payment by a Chinese family to a college counselor at the center of the college admissions cheating scandal.

The Journal said the adviser, Qui Xue Yang, works at Summa Group, a small unit of Oppenheimer that noted Ms. Yang’s work with Chinese clients on its website. Ms. Yang joined the firm in 2015, according to her BrokerCheck record.

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According to Federal court filings, a Los Angeles-based adviser whom the newspaper identified as Ms. Yang, allegedly coordinated for the family to pay William Singer, who has admitted to managing the scheme, for securing a spot for a young woman at Yale University.

The Journal said that Ms. Yang didn’t respond to requests for comment and that Oppenheimer referred to a previous statement in which it said it maintained a “very limited” relationship with Mr. Singer’s foundation under the impression it was a college tutoring service, but that the relationship has since been severed.