How ex-cfler got caught up in admissions scandal
HOW A B.C. BUSINESSMAN GOT CAUGHT UP IN THE U.S. COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL
Until this year, David Sidoo seemed like that improbable guy who could do no wrong. The Vancouver multimillionaire was the embodiment of the classic rags-to-riches tale — the star defensive back who rises from humble beginnings to lead his flailing university football team to national glory, the mover and shaker who strikes it rich through savvy business deals and ends up in a glossy magazine’s “most powerful” list, and the philanthropist who generously gives back to the community.
But now that reputation is being questioned after Sidoo was named in a high-profile college admissions scandal that alleged wealthy parents tried to buy their children’s way into top U.S. schools.
The case raises intriguing questions about why a man reputed to have a strong work ethic would, according to U.S. prosecutors, pay $200,000 for an impostor to take entrance exams for his two sons.
Experts who have studied unethical behaviour have floated a number of theories as to why parents might act in this manner, from worry about intense competition surrounding university admissions to the self-interested desire to preserve membership in society’s upper class.
Sidoo, who has pleaded not guilty, and his family declined through a communications representative to talk to the Post for this story. David Chesnoff, his Nevada-based lawyer, said in a statement: “Mr. Sidoo has a very robust defence that disputes the allegations, and we look forward to his day in court when we can present our side of this case.”
Sidoo’s supporters say whatever the outcome, his legacy shouldn’t be defined by it. Maybe he was “blinded by the love for his kids” and made a mistake, said Jason Riley, a friend and ex-teammate.
“He’s a good-hearted person. There’s a lot of people that have his wealth that are vindictive and angry people. Dave is not.”
Sidoo doesn’t have the celebrity status of other parents tangled up in the investigation, namely Hollywood stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. But he is well known in the South Asian community for being a football trailblazer and in the broader community for his business ventures and philanthropy.
“It’s well known that David and his wife are socialites in Vancouver and well-regarded in the business community,” said Paul Dhillon, editor of the Surrey, B.c.-based newspaper The Link.
Sidoo grew up in New Westminster, B.C., the son of a sawmill-working immigrant father from Punjab in northern India and a stayat-home mother. There were times growing up when he had only one meal a day, he has said in the past.
“There’s no silver spoon in his family,” said Amrik Virk, a former B.C. provincial politician and friend of the family.
“His personal story is … the story of hard work and persistence.”
Sidoo developed a love for football while attending New Westminster Secondary School. The coach at the time, Doug Woodward, lived near Sidoo and recalls walking home together after practice.
“He was a fairly mature kid, very polite. That’s what I liked about him. It was either ‘Coach Woodward’ or ‘Sir.’”
On the field, Sidoo wasn’t the biggest kid, but he was the hardest hitter, Woodward said.
Sidoo also left a favourable impression on his coaches when he joined the UBC Thunderbirds in 1978.
“As far as I’m concerned Dave is one of my favourite players and one of my favourite friends,” said thenhead coach Frank Smith, who was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame this year.
Sidoo was a “team man,”
Smith said. “There are some guys that are really good players, but they’re not good team men. Dave was a good player and was a good team man.”
During Sidoo’s third year, his father passed away after a heart attack.
“I was just starting out and he didn’t see what I could do or what I’d become,” Sidoo told the Vancouver Province years later. “But he gave me so many things.”
In the same interview, Sidoo recalled Smith put his arm around him, telling him: “You’re going to play professional football and take care of your family.”
That’s what he did. In his fourth year, the Thunderbirds clinched the Vanier Cup national championship for the first time. That success paved the way for Sidoo’s entry into the Canadian Football League, where he made history as the first Indo-canadian player.
But the glory he’d attained at UBC was elusive in the CFL. After five seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, in which he served as a backup safety, a “disgruntled” Sidoo demanded a trade, the Regina Leader-post reported at the time.
He had already been preparing for life after football. During a one-week vacation he crammed for a securities exam while teammates played golf, according to a B.C. Business magazine profile years later. And during a short-lived stint with the B.C. Lions, “he spent his mornings at a downtown brokerage firm, racing to football practice in the afternoons and then splitting his evenings between making cold calls and studying the Lions’ play book.”
The preparation paid off after he left the field for good in 1988.
Fast-forward 20 years to January 2018.
Sidoo is standing in a downtown Vancouver conference room at a metals investor forum. Dressed in a button-down shirt and suit jacket, he is talking about his foray into the lithium sector. Advantage Lithium, the junior mineral exploration company he founded, has, in 18 months, moved from a $5 million market capitalization to $190 million. Drilling projects are said to be underway in Argentina.
At one point in his presentation, which was posted on Youtube, he pauses to share a funny story about how he was in Maui recently when his phone buzzed with an emergency text alert about an incoming ballistic missile.
“I’m like, holy shit, we’re about to hit a motherlode in Argentina, I’m going to make another fortune, and I’m going to get blown up by North Korea.”
The crowd chuckles. (The alert was erroneous and sent accidentally by a state employee.)
Following professional football, Sidoo cut his investing teeth at brokerages Canaccord and Yorkton Securities. He became a “top revenue generator,” according to his website.
After a decade of looking after other people’s money, he switched to investment banking — building companies from scratch and raising capital.
One of Sidoo’s biggest start-up-to-sale achievements came in 2010 when American Oil & Gas Inc., of which he was a founding shareholder, was sold to Hess Corp. for over $600 million.
Since then, Sidoo has been involved in several public micro-cap companies focused in various high-risk resource sectors. One area he set his sights on was the emerging lithium market, a sector he called a “hot space” due to growth in electrical vehicle production and the demand for lithium-ion batteries.
A recent press release touted the results of a pre-feasibility study of the company’s flagship production facility in Argentina that found “proven and probable mineral reserves … sufficient to support 30 years of production.” But while Advantage Lithium’s shares reached $1.32 in January 2018, the company has since lost more than 87 per cent of its value. Its market cap is at $26 million.
Some of the other companies Sidoo is attached to have recently undergone restructuring and pivoted to other industries, like cannabis and hemp cultivation.
His associates say these changes should not be seen as a failure.
“You have to be nimble and be able to pivot in order to be successful,” Virk said.
There’s no question Sidoo’s climb has afforded him a lavish lifestyle. Several years ago, his family moved into one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods — Point Grey’s Belmont Avenue overlooking Spanish Banks. According to the most recent assessment, the home is valued at over $35 million.
As Sidoo’s status rose, it put him in the company of powerful people. In 2008, he co-organized a private dinner that featured retired U.S. four-star general Colin Powell, Grammy Award-winning music producer Quincy Jones and a who’s who of Vancouver’s elite.
One year, Sidoo and his wife, Manjy, snagged R&B superstar Jennifer Hudson to headline a fundraising gala for the Vancouver Opera.
Those relationships have not come without controversy. In 2007, Sidoo had a public falling out with celebrated chef Rob Feenie. Sidoo and his wife had stepped in to help Feenie with some debts and took majority ownership of his restaurants, Lumiere and Feenie’s.
Feenie accused the couple of forcing him out, telling the National Post he had the “wool pulled over my eyes” and that he had “turned to the wrong people for help.” Sidoo told reporters they had tried to work things out and Feenie quit.
Prior to this year though, the bulk of the headlines about Sidoo were mostly flattering and usually related to his family’s philanthropy.
They have given generously. A new scoreboard for his high school’s stadium. Breakfast programs to feed inner-city children. UBC scholarships. A fundraising venture to reinvigorate UBC’S football program.
Sidoo has been showered with accolades in return. He was inducted into the B.C. Football Hall of Fame and B.C. Sports Hall of Fame, honoured with a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and awarded the Order of B.C.
In a 2017 interview with the Indo-canadian Voice, Sidoo said the opportunities for Indo-canadian youth were infinite, invoking, as he has often done, a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps work ethic.
“A country like Canada is a place that our immigrant parents came to (in order) to help us get an education and whether you are a mathematician, a violinist, a great pianist or an athlete, if you put your mind to it in Canada, you can do anything you want. And I think that’s what I did.”
Behind the scenes, however, U.S. prosecutors were developing a very different portrait of Sidoo that suggested he didn’t apply that work ethic to his children.
An indictment filed by prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Boston alleges Sidoo arranged in the fall of 2011 to have someone take an SAT college entrance exam for his older son, Dylan, for $100,000.
The test taker posing as his son received instructions not to get too high a score because Dylan had previously taken the exam himself and got 1460 out of 2400, the indictment says.
The following year, Sidoo is alleged to have made a similar arrangement for his younger son, Jordan. In this instance, the test taker was instructed to get a high score, as Jordan had not previously taken the exam.
Court documents say in the fall of 2013, William Singer, the man accused of masterminding the admissions scheme, drafted a falsified college application essay that purported Jordan had done an internship with an organization that aims to combat gang violence in L.A.
“The essay falsely claimed that Sidoo’s younger son had been held up at gunpoint by gang members in Los Angeles,” the indictment reads. “Singer emailed the essay to Sidoo. Sidoo wrote back with minor changes to the essay and asked, ‘can we lessen the interaction with the gangs. Guns…? That’s scary stuff.”
The part about the guns was taken out, according to the allegations in the indictment.
In 2015, prosecutors allege, Sidoo talked to Singer about having someone take graduate management or law school admissions tests for Dylan. But, according to court documents, Singer wrote back that the LSAT would not be possible because of fingerprinting requirements.
Prosecutors allege arrangements were made for someone to take the GMAT in Dylan’s place, but it did not happen because the fake IDS were of poor quality.
Dylan and Jordan have since graduated from the University of Southern California and University of California Berkeley, respectively. They’ve not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Sidoo was charged with conspiring to commit offences related to mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. His lawyers have previously asked the public not to rush to judgment. The case is set to return to court in the new year.
After the allegations became public, Sidoo stepped down as CEO of Advantage Lithium and East West Petroleum. His son, Dylan, also vacated his seat on East West’s board.
One of the company’s shareholders has gone public to question how his son made it on the board in the first place.
“How he could be sitting on the gas and oil firm’s board with hardly any experience — it just baffles me,” said Jeff Emans by phone from his home in Illinois. “That’s pure nepotism.”
Sidoo did not respond to a series of written questions, including the allegation of nepotism. Asked if Dylan wished to respond, Kelly Gleeson, the family’s communications representative, said: “The family has chosen not to comment.”
While Sidoo awaits his day in court, many other parents have pleaded guilty, as well as Singer, for their roles in the scheme, which, in some cases, involved faking applicants’ athletic credentials.
Rutgers University management professor Oliver Sheldon, who has studied unethical behaviour, says there are different theories that could explain why parents might behave this way.
One theory suggests a self-interested reason: they perceive their membership in the upper class, which they worked hard to achieve, as under threat if their kids fail to get into a great school. They feel entitled “to do whatever it takes” to protect against this.
Another theory suggests a more pro-social reason: they perceive their kids’ well-being and success in life as under threat due to the intense competition around school admissions. When people identify with a so-called “ingroup,” this intense identification can lead them to “disengage from or disassociate themselves with moral principles” and behave unethically on behalf of members of that ingroup.
Sidoo’s supporters keep pivoting back to his philanthropy.
Wally Oppal, B.C.’S former attorney general, told the Post: “I want the people who read your article to know that he’s a very decent person who’s helped out a lot of people. That shouldn’t be forgotten.”
Virk, a former RCMP officer who once served as B.C.’S advanced education minister, said: “I see Dave the giver, the family that gives back, the philanthropist, the self-made man. … I sense he will always continue to give back in the best way he can, irrespective of the outcome.”
But a $10,000 UBC law school entrance award that Sidoo and his wife have presented every year since 2015 was not handed out this year. The prize is awarded to someone who has faced “a significant personal challenge in order to pursue a university education, such as an illness, a death in the family or an injury.”
Neither Sidoo nor his representatives would say why it was withheld this year. A UBC spokesman said such gifts “do not necessarily follow a regular calendar for disbursement.”
When the award was first announced, a press release said Sidoo had committed $50,000.
“My hope is that this contribution will have an impact on the student experience at UBC,” he was quoted as saying. “It reflects our desire to provide assistance for students’ ability to overcome personal or financial challenges to acquire education that is their right.”
A VERY DECENT PERSON WHO’S HELPED OUT A LOT OF PEOPLE.