Opening statements are expected to begin Monday in the first trial of the college admissions fraud scandal that trapped celebrities Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman and was featured in the Netflix documentary “Operation Varsity Blues.”
Prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to kick off the trial of Gamal Abdelaziz, a former executive at Wynn Resorts, and John Wilson, a private equity investor.
The pair are accused of paying former college counselor and program mastermind William “Rick” Singer, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to bribe staff and get their children into the University of California. South by falsely presenting them as sports recruits.
Dozens of high profile parents, sports coaches and others have been arrested in connection with the case, but Abdelaziz and Wilson’s case is the first to stand trial, with many more having pleaded guilty.
The singer, who admitted to working with parents and others to fake test results and bribe coaches at schools like USC and Yale, is awaiting conviction for his role in the scam, which set to bare the astonishing level of corruption in the American higher education system.
Prosecutors alleged that Abdelaziz paid Singer $ 300,000 in 2017 to get his daughter, who did not qualify for his college basketball team, to USC as a basketball rookie.
Wilson also worked with Singer from 2013 to bring his son to USC as a water polo rookie, and then later in 2018 to bring his twin daughters to Harvard and Stanford as sailing rookies, alleged prosecutors.
He reportedly paid over a million dollars for the arrangements.
In opening statements for the jury trial, defense attorneys will likely argue that Wilson and Abdelaziz believed their payments were legitimate donations and that USC’s acceptance of their children was in turn legal and routine.
Prosecutors, however, said it was a clear case of fraud and lying, accusing the defense of misleadingly focusing on USC admissions standards, not parental behavior. students.
USC, for its part, said it only knew about the Singer scam in 2018, when it cooperated with the investigation.
US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton, who is presiding over the Massachusetts case, stressed in a recent hearing that “USC is not on trial.”
Prosecutors said they had no plans to call Singer as a witness, although they left the possibility open. He has previously pleaded guilty to obstructing justice for informing some of his clients after initially agreeing to cooperate with investigators.
In notes on his phone – which is now evidence in the case – Singer also claimed that federal agents pressured him to lie on recorded calls with parents, describing the payments they made as bribes instead of donations.
The defense, if it has the opportunity, can take advantage of these earlier confessions.
The prosecution is expected to call Bruce Isackson, a Northern California real estate developer and relative of the scam who cooperated with prosecutors, as the first witness on Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Frank said on Friday in a statement. hearing.
Isackson and his wife, Davina, pleaded guilty in 2019 to charges of working with Singer to get their daughters into the University of California, Los Angeles and USC as athletic rookies.
