Two parents convicted in first US college admissions scandal trial.

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BOSTON – Two wealthy parents who were the first to face trial in America’s college admissions scandal were convicted Friday on charges of corruptly attempting to buy their children into elite colleges as bogus athletic recruits.

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A federal jury in Boston found former casino executive Gamal Aziz and private equity firm founder John Wilson guilty of fraud and bribery conspiracy charges related to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure admission sites for their sons.

Jurors convicted the men on all charges they faced after 10 1/2 hours of deliberations that began Thursday after a four-week trial.

Aziz and Wilson sat emotionlessly as the verdict was read aloud. Aziz’s attorneys declined to comment, while Wilson could not be immediately reached.

Both men will be sentenced in February. They face the prospect of years in prison, although the longest sentence any parent has received in the scandal so far was nine months.

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The two are among 57 people charged with a scheme in which wealthy parents conspired with California college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer to fraudulently secure their children’s college placement.

Singer pleaded guilty in 2019 to facilitating cheating on college entrance exams and funneling parents’ money to corrupt coaches and athletic officials to secure their children’s admission as bogus athletes.

Both Aziz and Wilson are expected to appeal. Their attorneys claimed that they, too, were scammed by Singer, who kept them in the dark about the mechanics of his plan and led them to believe that their money was being used for college donations, not bribes.

The verdict followed a four-week trial that relied in large part on the recordings that investigators secretly obtained from the two parents with Singer, who became the main collaborating witness in the “Operation Varsity Blues” investigation. Prosecutors did not call Singer to testify, instead relying on his recorded calls with parents.

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The investigation caught executives and celebrities, including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, who were among the 47 defendants who agreed to plead guilty. Former President Donald Trump pardoned one of the parents.

Aziz, also known as Gamal Abdelaziz, is a former executive at Wynn Resorts Ltd. Wilson founded Hyannis Port Capital.

Prosecutors alleged that Aziz, 62, agreed in 2018 to pay $ 300,000 to secure his daughter’s admission to the University of Southern California (USC) as a basketball recruit.

Prosecutors said Wilson, 64, paid $ 220,000 in 2014 for his son to falsely designate a USC water polo recruit.

They said he later paid another million dollars to try to fraudulently secure places for his two daughters at Stanford and Harvard universities, an arrangement that Singer discussed in part with Wilson on recorded calls while cooperating with investigators.

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In a call prosecutors made to the jury, Singer told Wilson that “it doesn’t matter” what sport they were paired with and that it would “make them sailors or something.”

Wilson laughed and replied, “Is there a two-for-one special? If you have twins?

In both parents’ cases, prosecutors said Singer and others who worked with him created athletic profiles used in the admissions process that included fabricated information about their children.

Laura Janke, a former USC soccer coach who admitted taking bribes from Singer, testified that she later paid him after she left school to create a profile for Aziz’s daughter that falsified her height, position on the team, and recognitions.