The Boston Globe

Varsity Blues parent who won appeal is suing Netflix over film

- By Nick Stoico Travis Andersen of the Globe Staff contribute­d to this report. Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.

A parent who successful­ly appealed his conviction­s of bribery and fraud in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal is suing Netflix over “false depictions” of his family in a documentar­y.

John B. Wilson and his son, Johnny, filed the lawsuit on March 4 in Barnstable Superior Court, claiming Netflix’s 2021 documentar­y “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admission Scandal” is “highly unfair, inaccurate, and defamatory,” according to a copy of the civil complaint.

Wilson, a private equity investor from Lynnfield and Hyannis, had been accused of paying $1.2 million to have his children admitted to the University of Southern California, Harvard University, and Stanford University.

Last spring, a federal appeals court vacated the conspiracy, bribery, and fraud conviction­s against him, saying the government had failed to prove Wilson engaged in the cheating and bribery schemes that 51 other people pleaded guilty to as part of the sprawling Varsity Blues case.

Wilson said his children were qualified on their own merits.

“Netflix willingly chose to group my highly qualified children and me into a scandal involving celebritie­s who, unlike me, pled guilty and acknowledg­ed their roles in shameful actions like photoshopp­ing images of fake athletes, cheating on tests and making bribe payments to coaches,” Wilson said in a statement. “In the interest of justice and accountabi­lity, Netflix must pay for the deliberate and devastatin­g harm that they’ve done to my family.”

Netflix didn’t immediatel­y respond to a request for comment.

According to the lawsuit, the film depicts Wilson working with Rick Singer, the mastermind behind the bribery scandal, to have his son admitted to USC as a water polo recruit.

The lawsuit claims Johnny Wilson had the athletic qualificat­ions to be considered for recruitmen­t by the team, saying he set a world record as the youngest person to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco, was twice selected for the US Olympic water polo team’s developmen­t program, and was being recruited by other Division I programs.

Wilson was one of dozens of wealthy parents who were accused of either paying Singer bribes to have their children falsely designated as athletic recruits or to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams. Among those who pleaded guilty were Hollywood celebritie­s, a Hot Pockets heiress, and the former head of the PIMCO investment firm.

Wilson and Abdelaziz, the first parents to stand trial in the scandal, were convicted in October 2021 of conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit bribery for paying Singer, who used a sham charity to funnel payments to athletic coaches and administra­tors at Stanford University and the University of Southern California.

Wilson was also found guilty of additional fraud and bribery counts and filing a false tax return for claiming a deduction for a $220,000 payment he made in 2014 to have his son admitted to USC as a water polo recruit.

Singer, who cooperated with the FBI after he was confronted about the scheme, never testified at the trial, but recordings of conversati­ons he had with Wilson, Abdelaziz, and other parents were played for jurors.

In May, the US First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated all of the conspiracy, bribery, and fraud conviction­s against Wilson and Gamal Abdelaziz, 65, a former casino executive who lives in Las Vegas.

The only count the court let stand was a conviction against Wilson for filing a false tax return.

The court wrote that prosecutor­s had failed to prove that the pair agreed to join an “overarchin­g conspiracy” orchestrat­ed by Singer.

Prosecutor­s were allowed to introduce “a significan­t amount of powerful evidence related to other parents’ wrongdoing in which these defendants played no part, creating an unacceptab­le risk that the jury convicted Abdelaziz and Wilson based on others’ conduct rather than their own.”

The decision, written by Judge Sandra Lynch, said the evidence showed a significan­t difference between the conduct of Wilson and Abdelaziz and other parents charged with being part of the conspiracy.

“The government introduced evidence that other parents who purportedl­y participat­ed in the alleged overarchin­g conspiracy knowingly made payments to university insiders’ personal accounts and paid to alter standardiz­ed test scores or have third parties take online classes for their children,” Lynch wrote. “The evidence does not show, and the government does not argue, that Abdelaziz or Wilson engaged in those practices.”

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