College admissions case to jury
Two wealthy parents are first to stand trial in bribery scandal
Two wealthy parents who are the first to stand trial in the college admissions bribery scandal used lies and money to steal coveted spots at prestigious schools their kids couldn’t secure on their own, a prosecutor said Wednesday before jurors decide if the men are guilty.
Gamal Abdelaziz and John Wilson wanted a guarantee their kids would get into the school of their choice and agreed to use fraud and bribery to have them designated as athletic recruits to make that a reality, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Frank told jurors in his closing argument.
“These parents were not willing to take ‘no’ for an answer and to get to ‘yes,’ they crossed a line,” Frank said. “And in crossing that line, they broke the law.”
The case now will head to jurors more than two years after FBI agents arrested dozens of well-known parents, athletic coaches and others across the country in the scheme involving rigged test scores and bogus athletic credentials. Nearly four dozen people have already pleaded guilty in the case.
Abdelaziz and Wilson face charges including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating on Thursday after the judge gives his instructions.
Lawyers for the pair have painted their clients as victims of a con man: the admissions consultant at the center of the scheme — Rick Singer — who never took the stand. The parents insist they knew nothing about bribes and false or embellished athletic credentials and that Singer led them to believe they were making legal donations to give their children a boost in the admissions process.
“John is not part of Singer’s con. There is no evidence, not even a hint, that John figured out Singer’s scam. The truth is simple: John is Singer’s victim, not once but twice,” Wilson’s attorney, Michael Kendall, told jurors.
Abdelaziz, a former casino executive from Las Vegas, is charged with paying $300,000 to get his daughter into the University of Southern California as a basketball recruit. Wilson, a former Staples executive who now heads a Massachusetts private equity firm, is accused of paying $220,000 to have his son designated as a USC water polo recruit and an additional $1 million to buy his twin daughters’ ways into Harvard and Stanford.
Prosecutors played jurors a slew of secretly recorded phone calls between Singer and the parents with the goal of proving that the parents not only knew their payments were bribes but were eager participants in the fraud. Singer, who began cooperating with investigators in 2018 in the hopes of getting a lighter punishment, has pleaded guilty but has yet to be sentenced.