How I was unjustly targeted in the Varsity Blues case
My life has been bookended by extreme circumstances. I grew up in poverty in the projects of Hartford, Conn., with three half siblings and an abusive single mother. After I was adopted, education and hard work transformed my life and enabled me to achieve financial success as my wife and I pursued our version of the American dream for over 30 years.
On March 12, 2019, my American dream came crashing down. That’s the day I was swept up in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal. There were many bad actors in this scandal, parents who paid people to cheat on tests, bribe coaches, and create fake athletic photos of their children to get their unqualified kids accepted into top universities. I wasn’t one of them.
Still, I was wrongly charged with multiple counts of bribery, conspiracy, and fraud, based on donations that I made to the University of Southern California for my son and Harvard and Stanford universities for my twin daughters. Years later, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned my convictions on all those counts and the prosecutors dropped the charges.
While my donations were meant to boost their prospects of admission, my three children were all qualified academically and athletically on their own merits. One of my daughters got a perfect 36 on the ACT; the other scored near perfect. They were to be team managers on sailing or crew programs given their Red Cross lifeguard certifications and years of boating experience.
My son scored in the 93d percentile on his ACT and was an elite athlete who broke a world record at 9 by being the youngest person to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco — landing him on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2006.
His high school coach confirmed that he was being recruited by other Division I water polo teams and that he personally called and recommended my son to the USC water polo coaching staff. My son joined the USC team as a non-scholarship recruit and his certified swim times proved he was one of the fastest players on the 2014 team.
My donations went to college foundations and IRS-approved charities, not to any individuals. USC gave me a receipt and kept my donations.
I also passed multiple polygraph tests, administered by the former chief of the FBI’s polygraph program and quality controlled by the former head of the CIA’s polygraph program.
Prosecutors for the US attorney for Massachusetts knew all of this, yet they charged me anyway. As former Boston assistant US attorney David G. Lazarus said about this case in a July 2022 Law360 article, “Boston positions itself to get those big cases and win any turf battles to keep them.”
As the sole initial defendant in Massachusetts, I was the venue “hook” prosecutors needed to help bring the trials (and media spotlight) for all the Hollywood celebrities and wealthy West Coast parents to Boston.
My lawyers warned me that fighting these charges could take years and cost millions; they said the odds of winning, even though I was innocent, were very uncertain since the government had seemingly endless resources.
My family was faced with the simple yet difficult decision: Do I take the easy path and plead guilty to a felony or stand up for truth and justice? We thought long and hard and decided to fight. I couldn’t live with myself confessing to a crime I didn’t commit. More important, pleading guilty would reinforce the false narrative that my children were unqualified. What happened to me was wrong and should never happen to anyone.
I was shocked at how tilted the playing field was. As court filings showed, the trial court excluded virtually all of my exculpatory evidence. For example, the jury was not allowed to see my daughters’ ACT scores or my son’s world record and certified swim times. They also weren’t allowed to see my will where I committed, a decade before my son entered high school, millions to fund college scholarships at Harvard University (where I got my MBA) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (where I received my bachelor of science) for lowincome, first-generation students like me.
My trial was so unfair that 11 former US attorneys (including two from Massachusetts) took the extraordinary step of publicly criticizing their former colleagues in an amicus brief, stating, “John Wilson did not receive a fair trial.” While all of my core convictions were overturned, I was left with a residual tax conviction for deducting my donations to USC, even though it was verified that I substantially overpaid my taxes that year. My sentence included a fine and probation.
Being falsely accused and wrongly convicted is a devastating experience for anyone. Imagine how my college-age son felt having his entire athletic record destroyed, not by a schoolyard bully but by federal prosecutors who repeatedly told the media that he was an “alleged” athlete.
My twin daughters were only 16 when this happened. Unfortunately, the internet makes sure that all my children’s scars are both deep and permanent.
The legal costs to fight this injustice were over $10 million — my entire life savings — plus I lost five years of my peak career earnings, and all of my credit cards, bank accounts, and insurance coverages were canceled.
In the end, was the fight worth it? Absolutely. I believe my family’s reputation is worth far more than money. Confessing to a crime I didn’t commit would have left a permanent stain on our honor. I’ll continue to fight to defend my children’s reputations. I’d rather leave them with a legacy of fighting for what’s right than money.
While the road ahead will be difficult, we can all hold our heads high.
And I’m thankful that I still have the skills and energy to start rebuilding — hopefully with the help of friends, colleagues, and classmates.
I was shocked at how tilted the playing field was.