Quid pro quo – or is it no?
Closing arguments heard in ‘Varsity Blues’ trial
The son of one of two men on trial for fraud and bribery in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal “could have been the Tom Brady of water polo,” and it wouldn’t have mattered the second his father allegedly paid more than $200,000 to get him into USC as a fake athletic recruit, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
In closing arguments in a 3K-week federal court trial in Boston, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Frank said John Wilson paid William “Rick” Singer $220,000 in 2014 to get his son into the University of Southern California as a fake water polo recruit, and $1 million in 2018 to get his twin daughters into Harvard and Stanford universities for sports they didn’t play.
Singer, the so-called “Godfather” behind the scheme, now is cooperating with the government and admitted to siphoning off the money he was paid to people who could help increase students’ ACT exam scores and get them into college as athletic recruits, even though they didn’t play the sports their applications said they played.
“It was a sweeping conspiracy that involved dozens of parents who would stop at nothing to get their children” into elite universities, Frank said.
Thirty-three parents have pleaded guilty, including TV actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, in the last two-and-a-half years. The parents have so far received punishments ranging from probation to nine months in prison.
Wilson and Gamal Abdelaziz, 64, of Las Vegas are the first to go to trial in the scandal.
Some of the money parents paid was diverted to Singer’s “charity” or to the school their kids were applying to, he said.
“In plain English, we call that a bribe, a quid pro quo,” Frank said. “No matter where the money goes, it was fraud. Without the money, the kids would never have gotten in.”
Brian Kelly, one of Abdelaziz’s lawyers, argued, “A quid pro quo is not illegal unless there is corrupt intent. There’s no proof Gamal Abdelaziz had corrupt intent.”
Likewise, Wilson’s attorney, Michael Kendall, said, “There is no proof that John said anything wrong to anyone. Parents were not making bribes; they thought they were making donations.”
Last month, Gordon Ernst, the onetime head tennis coach at Georgetown University, became the latest “Varsity Blues” defendant to admit the match was over.
The 54-year-old from Chevy Chase, Md., and Falmouth will plead guilty to bribery and filing a false tax return, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.
He has also agreed to forfeit nearly $3.44 million he earned from the college admissions scheme.
He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the most serious bribery charge.