2 wealthy parents appeal convictions in college bribery case
Categories: US Education News
Two well off guardians condemned to jail in the rambling school confirmations pay off embarrassment pursued their convictions on Monday, saying they accepted they were making real gifts to get their kids into world class universities.
John Wilson and Gamal Abdelaziz were found liable in a jury preliminary last year after examiners said they offered incentives to swindle the school confirmations framework. The two men were sentenced for extortion and pay off scheme, and Wilson was indicted for extra charges of pay off, wire misrepresentation and recording a bogus expense form.
Their sentences are the longest given over for the situation up until this point. Wilson, 62, was condemned to 15 months in jail, while Abdelaziz, 64, was condemned to a year. The two men are the main guardians who have gone to preliminary for the situation, which has captured almost 60 guardians as well as school games officials.
Both have demanded they had no idea their cash was being utilized for individual pay-offs, a contention they repeated in their requests. They were persuaded to think their cash would go straightforwardly to universities, their legal counselors contended in new court filings, saying they're the same than other rich guardians who make gifts to get a lift in the confirmations cycle.
“Wilson’s donations were intended for the universities, not any individual,” Wilson’s lawyers wrote. “The universities cannot be both the victim and the beneficiary of the ‘bribes.’” Wilson, a former Staples Inc. executive who heads a private equity firm, was accused of paying $220,000 to have his son admitted to the University of Southern California as a water polo recruit. Prosecutors said he later paid another $1 million to get his twin daughters into Harvard and Stanford, and then filed part of it as a tax write-off.
Both men portray themselves as victims of admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer, the scheme’s alleged mastermind. They say Singer led them to believe the payments were for legal donations, then used the money for bribes.
Singer has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the investigation. Both men faulted prosecutors for implying that Wilson and Abdelaziz were associated with other parents in the case, even though they didn’t know Singers’ other customers and weren’t aware of the scheme, their briefs said.
“Wilson was forced to convince the jury not only of his own good faith, but also that he was an outlier. That imposed an additional, if not insurmountable, burden,” his lawyers wrote. At the trial in October, prosecutors argued that both men were well aware their payments were designed to get their children into college as athletic recruits with embellished credentials.
They pointed to a water polo profile that Singer sent to Wilson for his son, listing fabricated swim times and awards. A fake athlete profile was also created for Abdelaziz’s daughter, but his lawyers say there’s no proof he ever saw it. And although Abdelaziz acknowledged his daughter was not a Division I-caliber basketball player, “she played basketball her first two years of high school and it remained one of her interests,” according to the filing.