LET ME OUT
Ex-money boss seeks release in college scam as Loughlin sentencing looms
Douglas Hodge, called one of the worst offenders in the college admissions scandal, is pleading to get out of jail — arguing it’s “torture” under UN standards to be locked up during a pandemic.
The former CEO of giant asset management firm Pimco reported to federal prison earlier than the feds expected on June 23 — but that’s when “a punishment more punitive than anticipated” began, his lawyers report.
Hodge was put in solitary quarantine for 29 days where he “sat in his cell for all but 15 minutes each day” and now he wants to finish up his nine-month sentence at home or have his term reduced, his lawyers state in a series of pointed appeals aimed at U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling’s Boston office.
The request for compassionate release comes as the COVID-19 epidemic is forcing prisons to clamp down on outbreaks and other parents in the “Varsity Blues” case are being allowed to delay trials to February.
A federal judge in Boston will also rule later this month if he will accept a plea deal reached with disgraced Hollywood actress Lori Loughlin and her husband that calls for two months in prison for her, five months for him. Their sentencing is set for Aug. 21 in Boston.
As for Hodge, he pleaded guilty last fall to paying $850,000 in bribes over 11 years to secure spots for four of his children at the University of Southern California and Georgetown University. He also allegedly attempted to get his fifth child enrolled at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, but was unsuccessful.
Now he’s locked in a legal fight that keeps intensifying as he remains in a federal penitentiary in Otisville, N.Y.
“The government essentially argues that Mr. Hodge deserves this harsh sentence and the consequences for his family because he is unrepentant. The government is wrong; Mr. Hodge has taken complete and sole responsibility for his conduct. The government’s arguments to the contrary are misconceived,” his lawyers state.
Hodge also alludes to an undisclosed family obligation he addressed to the prison warden in “a heartfelt, handwritten, five page letter.” And his legal team adds an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal ahead of his prison stint gets him all wrong. He wrote, his lawyers say, “I should have listened to my conscience.”
Prosecutors slam Hodge for claiming being locked up during the coronavirus pandemic is “torture under United Nations guidelines.” An accusation Lelling’s team calls “absurd and disingenuous.”
Inmates at Hodge’s medium-security prison — that until recently included President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen — could shower three times a week while in quarantine and use the telephone twice weekly, the feds say.
“They are also permitted to get fresh clothing, fill water jugs, and get ice” and had access to books, TV, papers, mail and the commissary, they add.
Hodge can “go outside anytime between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.” now that he is out of quarantine at a minimumsecurity “camp” inside the Otisville complex, the feds say. He was in quarantine for two 14-day cycles, Lelling’s office adds, out of precaution after others tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Hodge’s hyperbolic claim that his initial quarantine period was 29 days of ‘sensory isolation’ amounting to torture under United Nation standards is false,” prosecutors write, adding it was “not punishment” but steps taken to “minimize risk” of COVID-19.
“Hodge has sought to evade the consequences of his crimes at every turn,” the feds state. “He expressed remorse at his sentencing, then published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal the next day in which he casts himself as his co-conspirator’s victim.
“The need to promote respect for the law and just punishment,” Lelling’s team added, “weighs heavily against reducing Hodge’s sentence.” Plus, they add, if he’s let out early, the press will pounce.
Judge Nathaniel Gorton has yet to rule on Hodge’s plea. But at the February sentencing, he said the former CEO’s “conduct in this whole sordid affair is appalling and mind boggling at the same time.”
‘Hodge’s hyperbolic claim that his initial quarantine period was 29 days of ‘sensory isolation’ amounting to torture under United Nation standards is false.’
The office of U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling