[Previous story, posted at 3:55 p.m. ET] A former University of Southern California water polo coach has been found guilty of conspiracy and fraud on Friday for soliciting and accepting bribes to facilitate the admission of students to college fraud. Jovan Vavic was found guilty in a Boston federal court of conspiracy to commit fraudulent mail and information services, conspiracy to commit federal bribery and fraudulent telephone services. CNN contacted a lawyer representing Vavic for comment. Massachusetts District Attorney Rachel Rollins said her office was “grateful” for the verdict, calling it “arguably one of the biggest scandals in the history of academia.” “To say that the conduct in this case was reprehensible is derogatory,” Rollins told a news conference. “The rich, powerful and famous, with privileges and rights, used their money and influence to steal college admissions from more qualified and deserving students.” The verdict came the same day that Mark Riddell was to be convicted of his key role, as authorities called him, in a major scam to help wealthy parents buy their kids’ way to college. Vavic received bribes from William “Rick” Singer, a former college admissions coach who was the mastermind of the scam. Singer was accused of bribing college coaches and sports executives to say a prospective student should be accepted into a school as a recruiter for a sports team knowing that the student was not a competitive player or that his athletic profile was fake, the report said. prosecutors. Riddle was due to be sentenced on Friday afternoon. Riddle, a standardized test taker, was either paid SAT and ACT aces in place of the students or corrected the students’ answers before they were delivered, prosecutors said. Riddell, one of the many people involved in the wider system in 2019, pleaded guilty that year to a conspiracy to commit mail fraud and outright mail fraud and a conspiracy to launder money laundering. Authorities arrested and charged Riddell, dozens of parents, college coaches and administrators in the extensive 2019 investigation known as “Operation Varsity Blues.” Riddell agreed to an objection agreement in 2019 that requires jail time at the low end of the indictment charges. Federal prosecutors proposed 33 to 41 months in prison, a law enforcement source told CNN that year. He faced up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors also want Ridel to serve 36 months of supervised release and pay a $ 239,449.42 fine, which is about what he earned from his crimes, according to his plea agreement. Prosecutors said Riddle was linked to Singer, who they said committed two general scams: First, he cheated on standardized tests for students whose parents paid. and second, to use Singer’s relationships with college coaches and use bribes to get the children of paying parents to go to school with fake sports credentials. Riddle was a key player in the trial fraud, prosecutors said. For years, starting in 2011, Singer, the owner of a college preparatory company, bribed test administrators to let Riddell test the students ‘position or correct the students’ answers, prosecutors said. Singer would donate money to a fake charity donated by his clients to test administrators at a private Los Angeles school and a public high school in Houston, authorities said. Riddle was paid $ 10,000 per test, prosecutors said. “He was just a very smart guy,” Andrew Lelling, the Massachusetts District Attorney, told a news conference in March 2019. “He had no side information about the correct answers. He was just smart enough to get almost perfect score on the exam or calibrate the score. “ Singer, who helped with the investigation, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit extortion and other charges and is awaiting sentencing.
Most of the people accused in the “Operation Varsity Blues” have pleaded guilty
The vast majority of defendants pleaded guilty and served their sentences, generally measured in weeks or months. Among the highest-profile parents charged in the system investigation was actress Felicity Huffman, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and outright mail fraud services because she paid the singer $ 15,000 to boost her scores. in the test. Huffman spent 11 days in jail in 2019. Another actress, Lori Loughlin, spent two months in jail and her husband Mossimo Giannulli spent five months in jail for paying $ 500,000 to take their two daughters to the University of Southern California. as fake recruited athletes. was accused of nominating certain USC candidates as water polo recruits, thus facilitating their admission to the university, based on fake sports CVs, in exchange for bribes. He was fired in March 2019 following the publication of his allegations of involvement in fraud. CNN’s Laura Ly, Travis Nichols, Braden Walker, Mark Morales and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.
