Jurors hear arguments in Harvard bribery case
Fencing coach at center of alleged scheme
A prosecutor told a federal court jury Monday that a wealthy Maryland businessman made payments totaling $1.5 million to Harvard University fencing coach Peter Brand, and even bought his house for nearly twice its value, as part of a scheme to get his two sons admitted to the school as fencing recruits.
The payments from Jie “Jack” Zhao to Brand from 2012 to 2017 were “bribery,” Assistant US Attorney Ian Stearns told jurors during opening statements in federal court in Boston in the trial of the two men. “It’s also fraud. Those crimes are what this case is all about.”
But defense lawyers told jurors that Zhao’s sons were outstanding athletes and students who were admitted to Harvard on their own merit. They described Zhao and Brand as close friends and said the payments were loans, which Brand repaid last year in full, with interest.
“This was a friend loaning a friend money,” Brand’s attorney, Douglas Brooks, said in his opening remarks. He told jurors that even if they believed Zhao should not have been giving money to Brand at the same time that the coach was recruiting his sons, it was not a crime.
Brand, 69, of Cambridge, and Zhao, 63, a telecommunications executive, each face one count of bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and honest services wire fraud — essentially an allegation that Harvard was defrauded and deprived of Brand’s honest services. They were indicted two years ago on the heels of the Varsity Blues bribery scandal that led to the convictions of more than 50 parents, coaches, and administrators and cast a spotlight on the corrupt influence of wealth on college admissions decisions nationwide.
But Brooks said that Zhao’s sons “were the perfect recruits to the Harvard fencing team,” noting that they both fenced for four years after being
admitted in 2014 and 2017 and graduated with top honors. “The school was not harmed in any way. Harvard got more than they could have ever hoped for when they got Edward and Eric Zhao,” he said.
Zhao’s attorney, Michael Packard, said Zhao’s sons were admitted based on their own hard work and talent and Zhao “had something that Harvard cared a lot about and that’s a lot of money and the capacity to make a big difference” with significant donations to the school.
He showed jurors a $250,000 check Zhao and his wife paid to Harvard in 2015.
Gesturing to Zhao’s two sons, seated in the front row of the courtroom, Packard told jurors that at the end of the trial he would ask them to return a verdict “that clears those two boys’ names and sets their father free.”
The investigation that led to the case followed a 2019 Globe report that raised questions about Zhao’s purchase of Brand’s home at a grossly inflated price at the same time his younger son was being recruited by the coach.
Brand coached Harvard’s men’s and women’s fencing teams for 20 years before he was fired in 2019 for violating the school’s conflict of interest policy.
Prosecutors allege Zhao, in 2015, paid the $119,000 outstanding mortgage on Brand’s Needham house, $8,400 for his son’s tuition at Penn State University, $32,340 for his son’s student loans, $2,500 for his water and sewer bill, and more than $34,000 for his new Chevrolet Camaro.
The following year, Zhao purchased Brand’s Needham home for $989,500, which was more than $440,000 above its assessed value. Seventeen months later, he sold it for a $324,500 loss, according to property records. Brand used the proceeds to purchase a Cambridge condominium, and Zhao paid him $50,000 toward the purchase and an additional $154,600 for renovations, prosecutors allege.
Brand’s lawyer told jurors he repaid the loans last year with an inheritance he received from his late mother. But, prosecutors later objected, out of the presence of the jury, arguing that the defense had provided “zero evidence” to the government that the payments were loans that have since been repaid.
On Monday, Stearns told jurors that tens of thousands of students apply to Harvard every year, and Brand was allowed to recruit three men and three women for fencing, which boosted their chances of admission. Harvard admits 2,000 students each year, according to a spokeswoman for the school.
Stearns said Zhao “wasn’t willing to take any chances” that his sons would be denied admission and offered to pay Brand at a time when the coach was struggling with debts and “wanted to secure his future.”
“You will learn that Peter Brand did not become interested in recruiting Jack Zhao’s sons until there was something in it for him,” Stearns said. “And that something was money.”
Prosecutors allege that Brand and Zhao devised the bribery scheme along with Alexandre Ryjik, who ran a Virginia fencing academy and coached Zhao’s sons when they were in high school. Ryjik has been granted immunity from prosecution by the government in exchange for his cooperation and he began testifying at trial Monday about the alleged bribery scheme.
Defense lawyers told jurors that Ryjik was a cheat and liar, who scammed the government out of $300,000 in COVID-related relief funds during the pandemic and was never prosecuted because he corroborated the government’s claim that Brand and Zhao committed bribery.
“There is only going to be one person in the courtroom who committed any crimes and that’s the government’s star witness,” said Brooks, accusing Ryjik of being “an admitted criminal who accused two innocent men to save himself from prison.”