Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. The moral outrage
Speaker 1: over wealthy parents getting their kids into college with bribes,
Speaker 1: fixed s a T scores, and fake athletic feats continues unabated,
Speaker 1: more than a week after the college admission scandal was revealed.
Speaker 1: But will that translate into those wealthy parents spending any
Speaker 1: time in jail? Joining me to answer that question and
Speaker 1: more is former federal public defender James Cohen, professor at
Speaker 1: Fordham Law School. So, Jim, is there even a chance
Speaker 1: that one of these parents will serve time in prison? Oh? Absolutely, indeed,
Speaker 1: I would rate the odd jecs. There's a bigger chance
Speaker 1: that they will than that they won't. Really, why do
Speaker 1: you say that, because mostly let'sperts are saying or ageous offense.
Speaker 1: It's the wealthy helping the wealthy, with no regard or
Speaker 1: insight into the fact that that's what they're doing. Now,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of these
Speaker 1: parents are that. None of these parents struggled over whether
Speaker 1: to do it. And I'm sure there are some people
Speaker 1: out there that struggled and decided not to, but that's
Speaker 1: not the group we're talking about. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: group that struggled and decided to do it. Isn't this
Speaker 1: the type of crime though that is usually plea bargained down.
Speaker 1: The answer is no. I think that the prosecutors rightfully
Speaker 1: want to send a message, as they say, they want
Speaker 1: general deterrence. They want the educational marketplace, so to speak,
Speaker 1: to be perceived as clean and honest by the public.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there won't be any deals, but I
Speaker 1: am saying that the deals are not going to be fantastic. Uh,
Speaker 1: You're not going to get great deals out of this conduct. So,
Speaker 1: at a court appearance for one of the parents, Greg Abbott,
Speaker 1: the CEO of International Dispensing, who is now on leave,
Speaker 1: when asked how much time he could face by the judge,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor told the judge twelve to twenty four months,
Speaker 1: and Abbot's lawyer told the judge zero to six months.
Speaker 1: You know, defense lawyers want to make sure that their
Speaker 1: client believes that they the defense lawyer, are pitching it downward.
Speaker 1: I try to find out quickly what the guidelines were,
Speaker 1: could not find out. They probably are somewhere in the
Speaker 1: range for both of those that is twelve to twenty
Speaker 1: four and whatever the other one was. But a judge
Speaker 1: is not bound by those guidelines. A judge is going
Speaker 1: to say this is absolutely disgraceful. And I won't say
Speaker 1: throw the book at these people in the sentence. The guidelines,
Speaker 1: let's say, are two years. I'm not saying they're going
Speaker 1: to get five years, but I don't think they discount
Speaker 1: off the guideline. Sentence is going to be very great
Speaker 1: at all. Many of these parents have hired high power
Speaker 1: attorneys in big law firms, and if they're going that route,
Speaker 1: aren't those attorneys going to try to bargain down to
Speaker 1: let's say, community service, a hefty fine and just say,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're not going to do that, Mr prosecutor,
Speaker 1: we're going to trial. And the prosecutors are gonna say,
Speaker 1: bring it on. The prosecutors are going to say, great,
Speaker 1: I need more trial experience, let's do it. These cases
Speaker 1: are not triable for the most part. I don't know
Speaker 1: all the details, but these cases are not what we
Speaker 1: call triable from the defense attorney's perspective. You have some
Speaker 1: people saying, for example, play right. David Mammott wrote a
Speaker 1: letter posted last week in The Hollywood Reporter and support
Speaker 1: of Felicity Huffman and saying, you know, it's just being
Speaker 1: a parent defense. You know it wasn't for me, it
Speaker 1: was from my kid. Yeah, the judge is gonna say,
Speaker 1: did not you of all people should have known better?
Speaker 1: You are people of privilege to the nth degree, and you,
Speaker 1: of all people should know better. Suppose this does go
Speaker 1: to trial. Let's say there is up defense attorney who says,
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna go to trial if you're not
Speaker 1: going to give us a deal. A deal, right, what
Speaker 1: are the likely defenses at a trial? That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think it will depend on the case. In some
Speaker 1: of these cases with the tape recordings may not be
Speaker 1: as clear as they are in others, and that would
Speaker 1: be a defense where you never heard the parents say
Speaker 1: I want to do it because I want to corrupt
Speaker 1: the educational system. Right. I mean, that's a silly example,
Speaker 1: but you know there is going to be some wiggle
Speaker 1: room in some of these cases just because. But that
Speaker 1: wiggle room in general is not going to be enough
Speaker 1: to exonerate the parents who participated in this. And I
Speaker 1: suppose that one of the defenses will be if the
Speaker 1: mastermind testifies that he offered it to me. I wasn't
Speaker 1: looking for this kind of deal. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do this. But he's the bad guy, right, and the
Speaker 1: prosector is going to say, you know, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I think it's Skinner is his name. Skinner is a
Speaker 1: bad guy, but so is the defendant on trial. What's
Speaker 1: going on right now? The parents have now hired these
Speaker 1: attorneys there up to parents are lawyering up, as we
Speaker 1: say on TV, parents are lawyering up, and they're going
Speaker 1: to begin some sort of discussions with the prosecutor, at
Speaker 1: least on the issue of bail. I don't think bail
Speaker 1: will be an issue for any of these parents, but
Speaker 1: they're gonna probably have to turn over their passports, which
Speaker 1: is a bit of an indignity. And then they're going
Speaker 1: to set the case for trial. They'll set the case
Speaker 1: for motions, and maybe one or more the lawyers will
Speaker 1: think of some clever grounds for motions. But then at
Speaker 1: some point they're going to arrive in Boston for trial,
Speaker 1: or they're going to arrive somewhere to plead guilty. Because
Speaker 1: it's a practical matter, they cannot ignore the benefits of
Speaker 1: the reduction in the sentencing guidelines for acceptance of responsibility.
Speaker 1: When you're dealing with relatively small amounts of time, which
Speaker 1: we are here, then the two or the three points off,
Speaker 1: depending on what the guideline started at, is going to
Speaker 1: be important. None of the kids who are charged are charged,
Speaker 1: and some of them appeared from the allegations of the prosecutors,
Speaker 1: some of them appeared to be participants in it. Some
Speaker 1: of them didn't know at all. Do you think that
Speaker 1: down the road they'll be charged as well. I think
Speaker 1: that's a possibility. I think it really will depend ultimately
Speaker 1: on the prosecutor's reassessment of the children's involvement versus the
Speaker 1: parents involvement. It wouldn't surprise me at all that as
Speaker 1: the prosecutor gets on top of each of these cases,
Speaker 1: looking at each of them through the new lens, that
Speaker 1: they will say, you know, this child really was participating.
Speaker 1: And by the way, they're not so much children, right.
Speaker 1: How old are these young people. They're eighteen nineteen. They're
Speaker 1: far from adults in any meaningful way, but they're also
Speaker 1: they're not children in any meaningful either. All Right, I'm
Speaker 1: sure the parentsecutor could say, I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: a break because obviously you weren't raised very well. Oh.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're glad that you're not the judge in
Speaker 1: these cases. Thank you so much, Jim. That's James Cohen,
Speaker 1: professor at Fordham Law School. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the
Speaker 1: show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg