Napa Valley winemaker is asking for only two months in prison
Huneeus to be sentenced Friday in national college admissions scandal
A Napa Valley winemaker facing sentencing Friday in the national college admissions cheating scandal has asked the judge for a two-month sentence, which is half as long as those given two other parents last week and a fraction of the 15 months prosecutors are seeking.
Among Agustin F. Huneeus’ arguments for leniency? Unlike some of the dozens of other parents implicated in the scheme, the daughter he’d helped cheat on her SAT and falsify a water polo profile didn’t get accepted to USC because of his arrest.
“Due to the timing of the charges, his daughter was never ultimately admitted to USC,” Huneeus’ lawyers argued in a sentencing memorandum. “Thus she never took a spot from some other more deserving applicant.”
“I want to pay my dues and feel clean again,” Huneeus, 53, of San Francisco wrote in a letter to the judge.
On Friday, Huneeus will become the first Bay Area parent sentenced in the bombshell case announced in March that shook the country’s faith in the fairness of college admissions already perceived to favor the rich and connected.
Prosecutors argued a 15-month sentence is appropriate because Huneeus was prepared to spend one of the highest amounts — $300,000 — toward cheating his daughter’s way into an elite college. He also involved her in the scheme and considered involving another daughter.
“He embraced the fraud, wanted to expand it and even proposed involving two of his daughters in it,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
The scheme revolved around Newport Beach admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer, 58, who pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy, fraud and money-laundering charges and has cooperated with authorities. Singer’s sentencing date hasn’t been set.
The case since has grown to 52 defendants, including 13 coaches, two entrance exam administrators and 35 wealthy parents from Silicon Valley to Hollywood, Wall Street and China who paid to ease their kids’ way into elite schools, including Stanford, Yale and USC.
In addition to Singer, 22 coaches, parents and others have pleaded guilty to the scheme that involved paying entrance exam proctors to inflate students’ scores and bribing college coaches to flag students for admission as athletic recruits in sports some of them never played, or at least not competitively.
A former Stanford sailing coach and three parents from Los Angeles, including actress Felicity Huffman, have been sentenced. The coach received credit for a day served in prison and was sentenced to six months’ home confinement. Huffman was sentenced to two weeks in prison and two businessmen each received four-month prison sentences.
Huneeus was born in Chile to parents who left the country when he was 6, settling in the U.S. when he was 11 and founding a Napa Valley winery in late 1970s, which he bought from them in 2016.
Prosecutors argued that of the parents who pleaded guilty, Huneeus was the only one to participate in both the test cheating and fraudulent athletic recruitment schemes for one of his four daughters.
He paid $50,000 to have Singer’s test proctor, who also has pleaded guilty, correct the daughter’s SAT answers in March 2018, giving her a 1380 out of 1600, which put her in the 96th percentile nationally, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Huneeus considered cheating on another entrance exam with his daughter, even suggesting to Singer that her sister who “looks just like her” could take it for her.
Instead, prosecutors said Huneeus made a $50,000 payment toward a $250,000 scheme orchestrated by Singer to bribe a former USC athletic director to flag the daughter as a water polo recruit. The athletic director also has been charged in the case.
Prosecutors said Huneeus admitted in a recorded call with Singer that though his daughter played water polo, she was “not worthy to be on that team.” The daughter also acknowledged in an application to Tulane University that “if sports were graded like academics, I would be awarded the polo equivalent of the gentlemen’s C.”
Prosecutors said Singer met with Huneeus and his daughter in October 2018 to discuss the scheme, and that Huneeus told his daughter to have a “keepyour-mouth-shut mentality” about it.
Huneeus’ lawyers argued that Singer was “a clever con man” who preyed on the anxieties of his client parents and their children, leading them to believe they were unlikely to be admitted to colleges of their choice without his help. They said Huneeus was led to Singer through a friend and had sought him out for legitimate counseling services.
In urging leniency, they submitted dozens of letters from family, friends and employees on Huneeus’ behalf. Employees wrote about how he worked to ensure their safety during and after the wildfires that roared through the Napa Valley in 2017 as well as earlier floods and mudslides.
A cousin told how Huneeus’ generosity helped him realize his dream of becoming an airline pilot.
Huneeus’ mother wrote that she has “cried every single day” over his conviction, which has forced his 86-year-old father to resume running their wine business. His wife called him a “great father and husband who has already paid so dearly for his failure.”
In his own letter, the vintner acknowledged his actions represent “the worst sort of entitlement.”
“I tried to take a spot,” Hunneus wrote, “from the very students the system was stacked against.”