Two parents first to face trial in scandal

Gamal Abdelaziz, a former hotel and casino executive, is accused of paying $300,000 to get his daughter admitted to the University of Southern California as a basketball player based on false qualifications.

John Wilson, a private equity executive, is accused of paying $220,000 to get his son admitted to USC as a water polo player, then conspiring to pay another $1.5 million to secure admission for his daughters to Harvard and Stanford.

Opening statements begin Monday for the first parents to face trial in a sweeping college admissions case that exposed the role money, athletics and family privilege play in the competition for coveted seats at brand-name schools.

Over the coming weeks, the fairness of the admissions process may also be on trial.

The mastermind of this college admissions scheme, a college consultant named William Singer, known as Rick, has already pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges and cooperated with the government. He specialized in getting his clients’ children into schools through what he called the “side door” — a process that involved making a donation to an athletic department (or simply a payment to a coach) in exchange for the student being designated as a recruited athlete, often in a sport that he or she did not play at all.

Part of the trial will hinge on the question of whether Abdelaziz and Wilson believed that USC embraced the “side door” or whether they knowingly engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the university by lying about their children’s athletic qualifications and making quid pro quo payments to athletic officials.