2 parents convicted in 1st trial of college bribery scandal
BOSTON — Two wealthy parents were convicted Friday of buying their kids’ way into school as athletic recruits in the first case to go to trial in the college admissions cheating scandal that embroiled prestigious universities across the country.
Gamal Abdelaziz, a former casino executive, and John Wilson, a former Staples Inc. executive, were found guilty after about 10 hours of jury deliberations in the case that exposed a scheme to get undeserving applicants into college by falsely portraying them as star athletes.
Abdelaziz, of Las Vegas, was charged with paying $300,000 to get his daughter into the University of Southern California as a basketball recruit even though she didn’t even make it onto her high school’s varsity team. Wilson, who heads a Massachusetts private equity firm, was 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.
They are to be sentenced in February.
They are among nearly 60 people charged in the investigation dubbed by authorities as “Operation Varsity Blues” that also ensnared athletic coaches at such prestigious schools as Georgetown and Yale. Other parents were accused of paying hefty sums to have people cheat on their kids’ entrance exams.
Thirty-three parents have pleaded guilty, including TV actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and Loughlin’s fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli. The parents have so far received punishments ranging from probation to nine months in prison. All told, nearly four dozen people have admitted to charges.
Wilson and Abdelaziz were both convicted of fraud and bribery conspiracy charges. Wilson was also convicted of additional charges of bribery, wire fraud and filing a false tax return.
Former USC senior associated athletic director Donna Heinel and two coaches — ex-USC water polo coach Jovan Vavic and former Wake Forest University women’s volleyball coach William Ferguson — are scheduled to stand trial in November. Three other parents are expected to face jurors in January.
Wichita water: Kansas’ largest city was placed under a water boil order after a large water main break, leading Wichita-area schools to close Friday and prompting residents to make a run on bottled water.
The city issued the advisory Thursday afternoon, affecting its nearly 400,000 residents and some surrounding communities following the break of a 42-inch main on Wichita’s north side.
Mayor Brandon Whipple asked residents not to hoard bottled water, but many area store shelves were wiped out of water by late Thursday.
The advisory was to remain in effect until testing showed the city’s water is safe. Officials hope to be able to lift the order by Saturday or Sunday.
Officials advised residents to boil water before drinking it or using it to cook or for other food or drink preparation. Residents also were warned to throw out ice cubes and to use a teaspoon of bleach per gallon of tap water to wash dishes.
Mexico drugs: Prosecutors said Friday they have caught the replacement leader of a drug gang involved in a bloody turf battle in central Mexico.
Prosecutors in the north-central state of Guanajuato identified the suspect only by his nickname, “The Panther,” to respect the presumption of innocence.
They said he had had surgery to change his appearance and avoid capture. He is suspected of several crimes, including an attack on detectives earlier this year.
The suspect was allegedly appointed leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima gang after the group’s founder — José Antonio
Yépez Ortiz, known as “El Marro,” or “Sledgehammer”— was arrested in 2020.
Mexico migrants: Mexican authorities have discovered 642 Central American migrants in six trailers near the United States border. The trucks stopped at a military checkpoint Thursday night on a highway between Ciudad Victoria and Monterrey in the northern state of Tamaulipas. The state public safety agency said Friday that four suspects were arrested.
Among the migrants were 564 Guatemalans, as well as migrants from Honduras, El
Salvador, Nicaragua and Belize. More than half of those aboard the trucks were children, nearly 200 of them not accompanied by an adult.
Germany Nazi trial: A 100-yearold man on trial for his alleged role as a Nazi SS guard at a concentration camp during World War II told a German court Friday that he was innocent.
The defendant is charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, where he allegedly worked between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi
Party’s paramilitary wing.
German news agency dpa reported that the defendant, who was identified only as Josef S. in keeping with German privacy rules, said on the second day of his trial before the Neuruppin state court that he didn’t know the Sachsenhausen camp.
Two witnesses from France and the Netherlands earlier told the court how their fathers were killed at Sachsenhausen for having been part of the resistance against the Nazis.
Authorities deemed the defendant fit enough to stand trial despite his advanced age.
“The defendant knowingly and willingly aided and abetted this at least by conscientiously performing guard duty, which was seamlessly integrated into the killing system,” prosecutor Cyrill Klement told the court. Further hearings are scheduled through January.
Nigeria hostages freed: In one of the largest liberations of kidnap victims, at least 187 people, including babies, have been freed in the country’s troubled north, police announced.
Nigerian security forces rescued the hostages from a forest in Zamfara state where they had been held for many weeks, Zamfara police spokesperson Mohammed Shehu said in a statement. He said they were released “unconditionally,” indicating that no ransoms were paid.
The hostages in Zamfara were freed on Thursday as a result of “extensive search and rescue operations,” and were helped by sweeping security measures including a shutdown of mobile phone networks and restrictions on gatherings and movements in Zamfara state, Shehu said.