It’s hard to defeat the government in court; the odds are almost always in the government’s favor. But occasionally private citizens—including dads—show the government went too far.
In a stunning rebuke of the theory of crime behind the Operation Varsity Blues prosecutions, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Wednesday unanimously vacated all the bribery, fraud and conspiracy convictions against two dads—Gamal Abdelaziz and John Wilson—who were accused of paying to increase the odds their children would be accepted into elite universities as so-called “fake athletes.” Only a conviction against Wilson on a separate matter, filing a false tax return, was affirmed.
Writing for the panel in a 156-page opinion, Judge Sandra Lynch chastised a core element of the feds’ case.
“While the government contends that the university insiders stood to benefit professionally from the defendants’ payments,” Lynch wrote, “describing this type of indirect benefit from a payment to a university principal—the alleged victim of the scheme—as a ‘private favor’ is at best a stretch.”
The parents were convicted on the idea they engaged in honest services fraud. That means by paying employees of universities to facilitate admissions fraud, the parents deprived universities of those employees’ honest services.
Wilson’s attorney, former U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, issued a statement saying the ruling “confirms what we’ve known from the beginning—John Wilson’s case is fundamentally different from others in the broader Varsity Blues scandal.”
Unlike other parents, Wilson, a former president of Staples International who was sentenced to 15 months in prison, wasn’t accused of wrongdoing made popular in TV shows and films about the scandal. Although he contributed to a foundation established by infamous admissions consultant Rick Singer, he didn’t bribe university employees, stage photos of his kids playing sports, pay proctors to alter SAT scores or partake in other misdeeds. Wilson has consistently maintained that his children, who were accepted into USC, Stanford and Harvard as members of water polo and sailing teams, were qualified applicants, and that his contributions were intended to benefit the schools themselves.
Abdelaziz, a former president of Wynn Macau, was convicted of fraud and bribery in 2021 after evidence showed he made payments to facilitate the admission of his daughter into the University of Southern California as a basketball recruit. His attorneys, Brian Kelly and Joshua Sharp, told media they’re grateful for the First Circuit reversed Abdelaziz’s “unfair” conviction.
“Mr. Abdelaziz has maintained his absolute innocence from day one and is enormously grateful that the Appeals Court has reversed his unfair conviction,” Kelly and Sharp said in a statement. “We are pleased to have represented him in this matter and look forward to Mr. Abdelaziz putting this behind him.”
Until Operation Varsity Blues, admissions “fraud” was not considered a crime. The relevant statute used by prosecutors was drafted by Congress to address corrupt elected officials, not parents.
Moreover, many universities—the supposed victims of the Operation Varsity Blues parents—favorably treat applicants who are related to large donors, who are in turn celebrated by those universities. One accused parent in the scandal, Amin Khoury, was found not guilty by a jury after his defense attorneys gained acknowledgments by admissions officials they routinely assign “plus factors” to children of wealthy parents, some of whom pay for tutors, prep courses and other means to give their children a leg up over children of parents with fewer means. While that reality might be troubling or unseemly, the relevant point is that it’s not a crime.
Lynch also found problematic the government’s argument that admissions slots are “property” of universities that can be victimized by fraud. While such slots might be property in certain scenarios, Lynch wrote, they are not property as a matter of law and should not have been phrased as such in jury instructions. Further, she agreed with arguments by attorneys for Abdelaziz and Wilson that the parents did not conspire with each other and thus were not conspirators for purposes of criminal law.
Operation Varsity Blues led to convictions, guilty pleas or deferred prosecutions for 55 of the 57 persons charged, with one of the two outliers a parent pardoned by then-President Trump. But those stats should now be tweaked further: of the 55, two, Abdelaziz and Wilson, won their appeals.
Although the First Circuit found the parents had not committed admissions crimes, Lynch cautioned the court was in no way supportive of their actions.
“We should not be misunderstood,” she wrote. “We do not say the defendants’ conduct is at all desirable.”
But a crime it is not.
(This story has been updated with the statement from the attorneys of Gamal Abdelaziz.)
