Private equity financier in college admissions scandal avoids prison in new sentencing
By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) - A private equity firm founder who was one of the first parents to face trial on charges arising out of a vast U.S. college admissions scandal was re-sentenced on Friday to six months' home detention after an appeals court tossed most of his conviction.
John Wilson, the founder of Hyannis Port Capital, had been sentenced to 15 months in prison before a federal appeals court in Boston in May upended his 2021 fraud convictions for conspiring to pay bribes to secure spots for his children at top universities. His new sentence also includes a fine of $75,000, restitution of $88,546 and 250 hours of community service.
"We thought it was very fair," said Michael Kendall, a lawyer for Wilson. "Now it's time for John to move on."
The appeals court held that jurors were wrongly instructed that university admissions slots constituted property under federal fraud statutes.
That ruling overturned all of Wilson's trial convictions, except on a tax fraud charge for taking $220,000 in fraudulent tax write-offs in 2014 for a quid pro quo payment he made to secure his son's admission to the University of Southern California.
Prosecutors argued that crime would justify U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin's imposing a 15-month sentence once again, while defense lawyers said that only probation was appropriate after Wilson's "sweeping victory" on appeal.
Wilson was among dozens of people charged in 2019 in the "Operation Varsity Blues" investigation, which exposed how some wealthy parents went to extreme lengths to secure spots for their children at elite universities including Yale, Georgetown and the University of Southern California.
At the center of the scheme was William "Rick" Singer, a California college admissions consultant who in 2019 admitted he facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and funneled money from parents to corrupt university coaches to secure the admission of their children as fake athletic recruits.
Singer was sentenced in January to 3-1/2 years in prison. Fifty people in total pleaded guilty, including the actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, who were among Singer's clients.
Prosecutors said Wilson was also one of Singer's clients and in 2014 paid $220,000 to secure the admission of his son to USC as a water polo recruit. Singer then funneled $100,000 to an account controlled by USC's water polo coach, prosecutors said.
They said Wilson subsequently deducted the payments as purported business expenses and a charitable donation on his tax return, allowing him to avoid paying nearly $90,000 in income taxes.
Wilson and another parent, former casino executive Gamal Aziz, in 2021 became the first Varsity Blues defendants to face trial. Aziz was convicted alongside Wilson, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated his conviction.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler)
