The first jury trial in the “Varsity Blues” investigation is currently underway, a federal sting operation that ensnared dozens of wealthy families who allegedly paid top dollar to manipulate the college admissions process for their children. Daniel Medwed, Northeaster University law professor and GBH News legal analyst, joined Aaron Schachter on Morning Edition to talk about the trial. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Aaron Schachter: This story first broke in 2019, and most of the accused parents have pled guilty. Why have there been so few trials?
Daniel Medwed: You’re right — 47 of the 57 people charged under Varsity Blues have already accepted plea deals, and these two — Gamal Abdelaziz and John Wilson — are the first to go to trial. The most likely explanation is that it’s incredibly risky to go to trial because federal sentencing guidelines are so harsh. You typically face a much, much steeper sentence if convicted at trial than anything contained in a pretrial plea offer. Critics call this differential a “trial tax.” If you’re offered a plea of three years when facing a sentence of ten if you go to trial and lose, then it’s effectively a seven-year tax on exercising your right to trial.
Supporters call it a “plea discount,” not a tax, that you’re getting a pretrial break of seven years by taking the deal. Regardless of whether you view pleas as a tax or a discount, it’s risky to shun a plea offer and roll the die at trial. But it’s a risk Abdelaziz and Wilson wanted to take.
Schachter: So these two decided to roll the die and go to trial, despite the risks. As a lawyer, how do you try a case like this? The defendants are extremely wealthy — a Wynn Resorts executive and a private equity titan — and have lived very privileged lives. How do you get the jury on their side?
Medwed: I think it’s hard to elicit any sympathy, though here the defendants came from humble beginnings and at least can be portrayed as self-made. First, you fight during jury selection to winnow out prospective jurors who might be predisposed against your clients. Second, at trial, the best strategy might be to turn the tables and focus on the prosecution. Make this case not about the defendants’ innocence, but about whether the government can prove — beyond a reasonable doubt — the defendants actually knew this was a pay-to-play scheme.
Specifically, it seems like the defense strategy is to show there’s reason to believe Abdelaziz and Wilson thought they were making legitimate contributions as part of genuine fundraising campaigns and that Rick Singer — the college consultant who served as an intermediary between the families and the universities — basically deceived them.
Schachter: Daniel, you just mentioned Rick Singer, who served as a middleman and is at the center of all of this. We've learned he isn’t scheduled to testify at the trial. Why not?
Medwed: The short answer is I assume the government simply didn’t feel it had to put him on the stand — they had a lot of conversations on tape or via email, so they likely decided it would be easier to just use those past recordings instead of the uncertainty of live testimony. The longer answer I suspect concerns the status of their relationship with Singer, who has admitted involvement in the scheme and taken his own plea deal. Perhaps they were worried about how he’d do on the stand and didn’t want to risk him coming across as defensive or obstructionist.
Schachter: We've been hearing a lot of these recorded phone calls between Rick Singer and the parents — conversations about what sport the kids should say they play and how much each school would cost for so called side-door and back-door admission. These recordings seem pretty damning. Did the defense try anything to keep them out?
Medwed: Wow, you’re ready for law school! Yes, out of court statements that are being offered for the truth of what’s asserted in the statement are hearsay and, yes, hearsay is presumed to be inadmissible based on the idea it might not be reliable.
But there are lots and lots of exceptions to that principle — and one exception is that out of court statements by your co-conspirator made during and in furtherance of a conspiracy are considered reliable because your interests are all aligned; they aren’t treated as hearsay and may come into evidence. Here, the government argument is that Singer was working in concert with these two defendants and that his words may come into evidence against them, almost like an admission by them.
