Trial penalties lead to longest (but still not so long) sentences for two Varsity Blues defendants

February 19, 2022

It has been a while since I have blogged about the Varsity Blues case and the sentences given to the high net-worth individuals who were federally prosecuted (though some of lots and lots of prior blogging can be found below). However, four months ago I noted in a post the fate of a couple defendants who did not plead guilty and I asked “With two defendants now convicted after trial, how steep might the “trial penalty” be in the Varsity Blues cases?“. This week we got an answer to that question through two sentencings reported in this Bloomberg piece headlined, “‘Varsity Blues’ Dad Gets Longest Sentence in Scandal Yet.” Here are the basics:

A private equity investor convicted in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal received a 15-months prison sentence, the longest meted out to date. John B. Wilson was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Boston after being convicted last year of paying more than $1.2 million to get his three children into elite colleges. He was also ordered to pay a $200,000 fine and $88,546 in restitution.

Wilson’s sentencing comes about week after former Wynn Resorts Ltd. executive Gamal Abdelaziz was ordered to spend a year and a day in prison. Before Abdelaziz, the highest sentence handed out in the case had been the nine months given to former Pimco Chief Executive Officer Douglas Hodge. Unlike Hodge and dozens of others charged in the case, however, Wilson and Abdelaziz chose to contest their charges at trial. A jury found them guilty in October.

Prosecutors had asked for Wilson to be sentenced to 21 months behind bars, saying he still refused to accept responsibility for his crimes. Wilson asked for 6 months, saying he deeply regretted his participation in the scheme orchestrated by disgraced college counselor William “Rick” Singer.

Helpfully, DOJ has assembled here all the cases charged and sentenced in the Varsity Blues investigation, and a quick scan reveals that the vast majority of the defendants who pleaded guilty received sentences of four month or less. So one might reasonably assert that the choice to exercise their rights to trial contributed to Abdelaziz getting roughly three times, and Wilson getting roughly four times, the prison sentence given to the average Varsity Blues defendant who pleaded guilty. That can be viewed as a pretty hefty trial penalty.

And yet, because no mandatory minimum sentencing provisions or big guideline enhancements were in play (and perhaps because of the high-profile nature of these cases), the extent of the “trial penalty” as measured in extra prison time imposed is a lot less for these Varsity Blues defendants than for other federal defendants in a lot of other settings. A 2013 Human Rights Watch report calculated that “in 2012, the average sentence of federal drug offenders convicted after trial was three times higher (16 years) than that received after a guilty plea (5 years and 4 months).” Three times higher in the federal drug sentencing context can often mean decades of more prison time; three times higher for Abdelaziz and Wilson is a matter of months.

Still, I cannot help but wonder what the decision to go to trial cost Abdelaziz and Wilson in other respects, e.g., attorneys fees, personal and professional stigma and uncertainty. Exercising trial rights can be quite costly for defendants even without accounting for the longer (sometimes much longer) sentence that will almost always follow.

A few of many prior posts on other defendants in college admissions scandal: