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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. It's a massive

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Speaker 1: criminal conspiracy dubbed Operation Varsity Blues that could have been

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Speaker 1: called the best education money can buy. Wealthy parents, from

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Speaker 1: leaders in finance, philanthropy, and law to Hollywood actresses, paid

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Speaker 1: bribes of as much as six and a half million

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Speaker 1: dollars to get their kids into elite schools, including Yale, Stanford,

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Speaker 1: and Georgetown. Special Agent in charge of the FBI's Boston Division,

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Speaker 1: Joe Bonavalanta, said parents, university coaches, and a college admissions

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Speaker 1: counselor were charged. The FBI uncovered what we believe is

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Speaker 1: a rigged system robbing students all over the country of

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Speaker 1: their right at a fair shot to getting into some

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Speaker 1: of the most elite universities in this country, such as Yale,

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Speaker 1: Stanford and Georgetown. Joining me is former federal Prosecutor George

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Speaker 1: new House up Theodora Oranger. This was such an elaborate,

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Speaker 1: brazen scheme. As a former prosecutor, what strikes you as

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Speaker 1: the most outrageous allegations. It's hard to choose amongst the

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Speaker 1: panoply of outrageous things that occurred here, the breach of

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Speaker 1: trust is really probably one that's the most upsetting. The

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Speaker 1: universities involved, which of course, are the victims in this case,

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Speaker 1: are truly doing their best to admit the best and

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Speaker 1: the brightest and the most talented based on the merits,

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Speaker 1: and to have something like this going on at the

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Speaker 1: level that it's going on to the extent calls that

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Speaker 1: into question. Also. The other thing that was very disturbing

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Speaker 1: was the fixing of the test scores. Again, these colleges

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Speaker 1: depend upon s A T S and a C T

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Speaker 1: S these test scores to provide an objective assessment of

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Speaker 1: the student's abilities, and this calls in the question whether

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Speaker 1: those scores are reliable, very unfair. The architect of this

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Speaker 1: massive scam, Rick Singer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to racketeering,

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Speaker 1: money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice. He cooperated

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Speaker 1: and wore a wire. Does that give the prosecutors some

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Speaker 1: evidence that will be hard to refute and may lead

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Speaker 1: to guilty please, well, there's no question that will lead

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Speaker 1: to almost all guilty. Please. And by the way, not

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Speaker 1: only was he wearing a wire, but you have to

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Speaker 1: understand the chronology of the investigation, which is laid out

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Speaker 1: on publicly available documents on the d u j A website,

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Speaker 1: including a hundred page plus affiday that filed by the

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Speaker 1: FBI agent. So he was caught on a wire tap

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Speaker 1: what we call it C three a title three. And

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Speaker 1: so for months Settle agents went up on a wire which,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is extraordinarily unusual in a white collar cases.

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Speaker 1: This is a device that's typically deployed against terrorists and

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Speaker 1: organized criminals. And so for we think, I mean, my

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Speaker 1: guess is for several months in until September, the agents

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Speaker 1: were recording conversations between Singer and his various clients, including

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Speaker 1: the national head of a large international law firm, and

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Speaker 1: they obtained an amazing amount of very rich and frankly

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Speaker 1: irrefutable information, capturing live conversations between conspirators in which he

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Speaker 1: elicited all kinds of damaging information. Then later he would

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Speaker 1: then after he turned and began to cooperate, he also

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Speaker 1: wore wires and made consentually monitored calls. So this kind

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Speaker 1: of evidence, there's no explanation, there's no spin for it.

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Speaker 1: Even a good defense lawyer can't cross examine the tape.

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Speaker 1: So these cases will will fall into place very quickly.

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Speaker 1: What are the parents who gave the money for these

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Speaker 1: bribes actually charged with and are any of them likely

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Speaker 1: to serve any time or is it going to be

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Speaker 1: heavy fines and suspended sentences. That's a great question, and

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Speaker 1: no one really knows. They're charge with serious credits. Are

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Speaker 1: charged with conspiracy to commit racketee or believe it or not?

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Speaker 1: Which is I mean? One thing I will say as

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Speaker 1: a former photo prosecutor, the U. S Attorney in Massachusetts

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Speaker 1: went a little overboard on the charging. This is not

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Speaker 1: really a classic racketeering case. The pattern and enterprise that

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Speaker 1: was occurring here, it really fits within the paradigm of

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Speaker 1: a traditional like color crime, although very widespread. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering and when you

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Speaker 1: plug in the sentencing guidelines for those crimes, even guilty, please,

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Speaker 1: they're going to be looking at potential sentences of several years.

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Speaker 1: Not whether they will get that, because all these people will,

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Speaker 1: of course, being the rich and the famous and the

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Speaker 1: wealthy will hire very good lawyers who will present their

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Speaker 1: case and ask for clemency. But I wouldn't be surprised

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Speaker 1: to see some some short prison sentences handed out to

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Speaker 1: the parents who paid outrageous amounts of money to get

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Speaker 1: their kids into these colleges. As you mentioned, there was

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Speaker 1: changing of test scores, photo shopping of supposed athletes pictures

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Speaker 1: in their sports. Is this an indictment of the whole

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Speaker 1: admissions process that this could be done seemingly pretty easily, Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't really think it is. I mean, first of all,

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Speaker 1: this appears to be an avergant situation. No one's ever

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Speaker 1: heard of this occurring before. I'm actually involved in the

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Speaker 1: college admissions process for my alma mater, and there's never

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Speaker 1: been any hint of this. The college is generally do

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Speaker 1: a pretty good job. At least the IVY League schools

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Speaker 1: interview all applicants, so there's some quality control going on.

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Speaker 1: So and remember the other thing is that the sports

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Speaker 1: that were involved were what we call the minor sports

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Speaker 1: where it's fairly easy to fake participation. You're not looking

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Speaker 1: at football, baseball, or basketball players where you know, performance

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Speaker 1: speaks for itself. That's not something you can You can

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Speaker 1: photoshop the photograph and then convince a coach to take you.

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Speaker 1: So I think this is an unusual case, a remarkable case,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think this is going to call into

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Speaker 1: question the overall process and the fairness of the process.

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Speaker 1: My question reading this at first was don't the colleges

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Speaker 1: check up on any of this, the honors that you're given,

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. Great question. Generally speaking, they do not.

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Speaker 1: Quality control has done through the admissions process, but once

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Speaker 1: those letters of acceptance go out, which will be going

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Speaker 1: out across the country in several weeks, the colleges are

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Speaker 1: relying upon the integrity of the people who write recommendations,

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Speaker 1: and of course they're relying on their own in house people.

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Speaker 1: That's George new House, former federal prosecutor, and he is

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Speaker 1: now at Theodora Oranger. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg