Global Courant 2023-05-11 07:55:09
A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned the convictions of two wealthy businessmen in the “Operation Varsity Blues” admissions scandal — in part by rejecting a central claim by prosecutors that the fathers had knowingly conspired with other parents to get their children admitted. to elite universities.
Both Gamal Abdelaziz, a former Las Vegas casino executive, and John Wilson, a private equity executive, paid self-proclaimed college admissions advisor William “Rick” Singer to get their kids into top schools like USC, including introducing them as better athletes than they were, according to court documents.
Singer was sentenced to 3½ years in prison earlier this year for masterminding the scheme, which involved falsifying exams and bribing college coaches to secure places in prestigious schools for his clients’ children. Abdelaziz and Wilson were convicted in 2021 of mail and telegram fraud and conspiracy to commit bribery, and last year were sentenced to one year in prison and 15 months in prison, respectively.
However, all of Abdelaziz’s convictions and all but one of Wilson’s convictions were overturned on Wednesday by the three-member panel of the Boston-based 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in a 3-0 decision that they were based on misapplication of the law. law, unsupported by the evidence presented at trial, or tainted by the introduction of evidence about other Singer clients with whom Abdelaziz and Wilson had nothing to do.
Writing for the court, Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch said the government “could have failed to prove that Abdelaziz or Wilson agreed to join the overarching conspiracy,” but nevertheless introduced “a significant body of strong evidence relating to misconduct by other parents.”
That, she wrote, created “an unacceptable risk that the jury would convict Abdelaziz and Wilson based on the conduct of others rather than their own.”
The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that Abdelaziz and Wilson were guilty of property fraud for depriving the universities of property in the form of the “admission slots” taken by their children without merit. Such slots could be proprietary, but prosecutors never identified them as such in the Abdelaziz and Wilson trial, the court ruled.
The court upheld Wilson’s conviction for filing a false tax return, for misrepresenting a payment to Singer as a tax-deductible donation.
Lynch wrote that nothing in the ruling “should be taken as an endorsement of the defendants’ conduct,” but that there are “good reasons to exercise caution and caution in criminalizing conduct, even unethical conduct, in this complicated area that affects so many students and parents.”
Massachusetts U.S. Atty’s office. Rachael Rollins, who was prosecuting the case, said in a statement Wednesday that it was reviewing the opinion and “assessing next steps.”
Wilson could not be reached for comment and his lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
Joshua Sharp, a lawyer for Abdelaziz, said his client was grateful that the appeals court “recognized that his trial was deeply flawed” and reversed his convictions.
“My client was not in a conspiracy with people he never knew, and his trial was fundamentally unfair because it relied on evidence of someone else’s wrongdoing,” Sharp said. “He has maintained his innocence since day one.”
More than 50 people were charged in the scandal, including TV actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and Loughlin’s fashion designer husband, J. Mossimo Giannulli – who were among dozens of people who pleaded guilty in the case.
Abdelaziz and Wilson were Singer’s first clients to face trial.
Abdelaziz was accused of paying $300,000 to get his daughter to USC as a basketball recruit, while Wilson was accused of paying $220,000 to get his son to USC as a water polo recruit and $1 million to send his twin daughters to Harvard and to get Stanford.
Both men admitted to paying Singer, but said they believed what they were doing was allowed.
“Their defense at trial and on appeal is that they considered Singer’s and Side Door’s services to be legitimate and that they acted in good faith,” Lynch noted in her opinion.
Prosecutors disagreed, as did the jurors hearing their case.
In February 2022, Wilson was sentenced to 15 months in prison and Abdelaziz to just over a year in prison, each followed by two years of supervised release, plus community service and fines.
Wednesday’s court ruling leaves open the possibility of Abdelaziz and Wilson being retried on a narrower set of criminal counts, though legal experts said that would be difficult.
