Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachel S. Rollins said: A jury found him guilty of Mr. Vavic on all counts. We are considering all options at this time. “
Since the indictment was announced in 2019, the government has stressed that the universities involved were not involved in the scandal. However, the scandal cast an uncomfortable light on athlete recruitment and revealed how it is intertwined with fundraising.
In a 60-page ruling, the judge said the jury had reached a reasonable verdict. I discovered that there is
During the trial, Mr. Vavic’s lawyer said he never embezzled money or committed fraud. They said about $100,000 in cash was deposited into his USC account for the water polo team. In addition, he spent $120,000 on his sons’ private school tuition. The money, they said, came in the form of a scholarship from Mr. Singer’s foundation.
Prosecutors said the foundation was a conduit for bribery.
The new trial order has also thrown wind into the sails of another defendant, John Wilson, a former Staples & Gap executive and founder of a real estate and private equity firm. Mr. Wilson appealed the charges that he paid more than $1.2 million to enable his three children to enroll as Division I athletes at the University of Southern California, Harvard and Stanford. doing. Qualified based on their athletic qualifications.
Vavic helped Wilson recruit his son to the water polo team.
“Judge Talwani’s ruling rightly denies the prosecution’s claim that John Wilson’s donation was a bribe,” Wilson’s attorney Noel Francisco said in a statement Thursday. “Indeed, prosecutors cannot identify a single instance in all of American legal history in which the victim and beneficiary of a ‘bribe’ were one and the same.”