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 Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Prosecutors in the
Speaker 1: college admission scandal are pulling out all the stops to
Speaker 1: pressure parents to make a deal, adding an extra felony
Speaker 1: charge and sending target letters to some of their children.
Speaker 1: But some of the indicted parents are sending a clearer
Speaker 1: message back to the prosecutors. They're prepared for the legal
Speaker 1: battle ahead. They're trying to get the charges dismissed by
Speaker 1: taking aim at the heart of the case. Joining me
Speaker 1: as former federal prosecutor Robert Mints, a partner, McCarter and
Speaker 1: English Bob explain what was happening behind the scenes before
Speaker 1: the indictments as the prosecutors tried to rest plea deals
Speaker 1: out of the parents. Well, what typically happened in these
Speaker 1: cases is prosecutors can begin criminal charges in one of
Speaker 1: two ways. They can file what's called a criminal complaint,
Speaker 1: which is something that doesn't go in front of a
Speaker 1: grand jury but is simply a complaint sworn out by
Speaker 1: an agent and that can be used to charge individuals,
Speaker 1: which is what happened here, and then individuals will allow
Speaker 1: the opportunity to that point to strike a plea deal
Speaker 1: with the government, and if they don't, then prosecutors take
Speaker 1: the case to the next step, which they've done here,
Speaker 1: which is to then return an indictment, which goes in
Speaker 1: front of a grand jury, and at that point they
Speaker 1: could add additional charges and really try to apply even
Speaker 1: further pressure to those people who have not decided to
Speaker 1: plead guilty. So, as you said, the prosecutors indicted the
Speaker 1: parents who didn't plead, added a money laundering charge. Plus
Speaker 1: according to the New York Times, they notified some of
Speaker 1: the children of the parents that they could be targets
Speaker 1: of the criminal investigation. Does this mean that these parents
Speaker 1: have lost the chance for a good deal and really
Speaker 1: they don't really have much choice now but to move
Speaker 1: forward to trial. No, they were certainly not past the
Speaker 1: point of no return. This is really just the government
Speaker 1: ratting up the pressure on these parents and essentially saying
Speaker 1: to them that if you decide to play hardball, if
Speaker 1: you're going to take this case to trial, then we
Speaker 1: as the government, as the prosecutors, are going to pull
Speaker 1: out all the stops and we're going to add additional
Speaker 1: charges against you, and we're also going to consider charging
Speaker 1: others who may also be legally culpable, which may include
Speaker 1: your children. And what they're essentially doing is firing a
Speaker 1: shot across the bow, letting these parents know that if
Speaker 1: they continue to fight this battle, that they may be
Speaker 1: dragging their children into harm's way. Does the deal the
Speaker 1: parents can get get a little bit worse as they
Speaker 1: inch toward trial. Well, that is usually the way it works,
Speaker 1: because prosecutors like to get the best deal out there
Speaker 1: as soon as possible, so they can get people to
Speaker 1: plead guilty, and they usually say the longer you wait,
Speaker 1: the worse the deal gets. So if you go past
Speaker 1: indictment and you go past motions, and you take the
Speaker 1: case to the point where it is ready to go
Speaker 1: to trial or even at trial, that deal will usually
Speaker 1: not be nearly as good as the one that they
Speaker 1: give out early on in the investigation. So lawyers for
Speaker 1: two of the parents, Gregory and Amy Colburn of Palo Alto,
Speaker 1: file for a dismissal of the charges let's talk about
Speaker 1: their arguments against the conspiracy charge that cite a ninety
Speaker 1: six Supreme Court case. Yeah, that's a very interesting argument
Speaker 1: and one that you see raised quite frequently in federal
Speaker 1: criminal trials, although here they may actually have a basis
Speaker 1: for this argument. And it's a case that goes back to,
Speaker 1: as you said, called Kadiakas versus the United States, and
Speaker 1: it goes to the central issue as to whether or
Speaker 1: not all these defendants can be charged in a single conspiracy,
Speaker 1: or whether or not they're really multiple conspiracies. The defendancy
Speaker 1: are arguing that while there may have been at least
Speaker 1: for purposes of charging a conspiracy, but between the parents
Speaker 1: and the individual who was arranging for the test takers
Speaker 1: and who was arranging for their students to be admitted
Speaker 1: as athletes, they had no idea about what was going
Speaker 1: on with all these other parents, and it is unfair
Speaker 1: and would prejudice them a trial if they were to
Speaker 1: be tried along with all of these all of these
Speaker 1: other parents who may have been doing different things, none
Speaker 1: of whom know each other, I know, none of whom
Speaker 1: were aware that the person they were dealing with was
Speaker 1: also necessarily dealing dealing with all these other parents. Another lawyer,
Speaker 1: Martin Weinberg, said the allegations about bribing coaches don't amount
Speaker 1: to money laundering, and other experts have said that the
Speaker 1: money laundering charges maybe a bit of an overreach. What
Speaker 1: do you think, Well, money laundering is kind of an
Speaker 1: artificially created crime in the sense that money launder is
Speaker 1: simply conducting a financial transaction with the proceeds of criminal activity. Here,
Speaker 1: what the defense is arguing is that these payments as
Speaker 1: bribes were not proceeds of any kind of and activity
Speaker 1: at the time they were made. They don't become proceeds
Speaker 1: of criminal activity until after the recipient of the bribe
Speaker 1: receives the money, So they may have a good argument there.
Speaker 1: What about the argument of I need a separate trial
Speaker 1: here When you have some parents who are in California,
Speaker 1: some parents are in Texas, Massachusetts, all over the place,
Speaker 1: and there are different schools involved, will they get separate trials? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an argument that again made Almost every time you
Speaker 1: see a federal criminal case brought, defense lawyers routinely foul
Speaker 1: that motion. But here there may be some merit to it.
Speaker 1: You generally do not want your client to be tried
Speaker 1: along with lots of other people, because at some point
Speaker 1: jurors may throw up their hands and say, if one
Speaker 1: is guilty, they all must be guilty. There's something called
Speaker 1: prejudicial spillover that defendants try to avoid. And here there's
Speaker 1: a pretty good argument that there was not one overarching conspiracy,
Speaker 1: but actually multiple conspiracies. How one of the advantages that
Speaker 1: you would get as a defense lawyer and having multiple
Speaker 1: trials as that means your star witness, Mr Singer, who
Speaker 1: is the one who arranged for all these bribes and
Speaker 1: all of these payments for people taking the test, would
Speaker 1: have to testify over and over and over again, and
Speaker 1: every time he does that his story might get a
Speaker 1: little different, and that gives prosecutors an opportunity to have
Speaker 1: to prep him every time, and to give defense lawyers
Speaker 1: the chance to cross examine him over and over again,
Speaker 1: hoping to find inconsistencies in his testimony. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: one of the parents who did plead, Actress Felicity Huffman,
Speaker 1: and she seemed to make all the right moves. She
Speaker 1: pleaded right away. She's so contrition, she accepted responsibility publicly.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors planned to ask for a sentence of four to
Speaker 1: ten months jail time. According to CNN, that's the lower
Speaker 1: end of the sentencing range. But isn't she a good
Speaker 1: candidate for probation. Well, that's certainly something that her defense layers.
Speaker 1: You're gonna argue, and it will be up to the
Speaker 1: judge at the end of the day, regardless about the
Speaker 1: sentencing guidelines show that the judge can hand out probation.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that that the defense lawyers
Speaker 1: will argue is that she contrition all the things you
Speaker 1: just said. She came in right away, acknowledged what she did,
Speaker 1: has tried to make amends, and has otherwise led a
Speaker 1: law abiding life. And maybe up to the judge to
Speaker 1: decide that no jill at all is appropriate here. Now,
Speaker 1: as far as the parents who are taking the case
Speaker 1: to trial, if they are not acquitted, if they're found
Speaker 1: guilty of the charges, what will their sentences look like
Speaker 1: in comparison? In other words, will they have a heavier
Speaker 1: sentence because they decided to go to trial. Well, that
Speaker 1: is usually the case. Although everybody has a constitutional right
Speaker 1: to a trial, and everybody has a right to be
Speaker 1: presumed innocent the innocent, the reality is that if you
Speaker 1: go to trial, you almost invariably end up with a
Speaker 1: larger sentence. If in fact you're convicted, the proscures will
Speaker 1: throw other charges that you They'll bring in other evidence,
Speaker 1: and you don't get points for accepting responsibility for acknowledging
Speaker 1: what you had done was wrong if you push the
Speaker 1: case to trial. So usually you will see defendants get
Speaker 1: longer sentences if they decide to take the case to
Speaker 1: trial and put the government to its proofs. Well, the
Speaker 1: mighty prosecution, but in this case, at least some of
Speaker 1: the defense attorneys are very very good and the parents
Speaker 1: have enough wherewithal to fight the cases. Thanks so much, Bob.
Speaker 1: That's Robert Mint's a partner McCarter in English, former federal prosecutor.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can
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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.
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