A wealthy father has been acquitted of bribing a Georgetown University tennis coach with hundreds of thousands of dollars to get his daughter into an elite school in the latest trial of a fraud scandal at a national college.
Amin Huri’s case was the 57th in connection with the Operation Varsity Blues investigation, in which 54 defendants pleaded guilty or were convicted in the trial, including actors Lori Laughlin, who spent two months in prison, and Felicity Huffman, who I spent 11 days.
Huri’s case was the only one that ended in acquittal.
He was found not guilty by jurors on conspiracy charges and fraud in the mail on charges of bribing former Georgetown tennis coach Gordon Ernst with a brown paper bag full of money in exchange for securing his daughter a place in the composition of the team.
Khoury’s lawyer claims that his client’s daughter was admitted to Georgetown on her own merits, saying the school regularly benefits children of wealthy parents.
Former Georgetown tennis coach Gordon Ernst has raised more than $ 3 million to give wealthy students a reception in Georgetown. AP
One of the lawyers said that the government’s case had fallen apart after Huri’s daughter stood up and testified that she had no idea about the payments to Ernst.
“They accused her of being part of it. And it was completely untrue, “attorney Roy Black told the Associated Press after the jury announced its verdict.
Khoury has not been accused of working with receptionist Rick Singer, who admitted to using his fictitious charity to bribe coaches and others at prestigious schools such as the University of Southern California, Yale and Stanford. The singer is expected to be sentenced in September.
Rather, the alleged prosecutor, Huri, used a middleman to pay $ 180,000 to Ernst – who pleaded guilty in October to accepting more than $ 3 million to transfer Singer’s clients to Georgetown as fake recruits. Ernst is due to be convicted next month.
Georgetown was one of many schools enlisted in Operation Varsity Blues.
The prosecutor said that Huri gave the bag of money to Timothy Donovan in 2015 at his home in Cape Cod to give to Ernst. All three played tennis together at Brown University, and prosecutors said the deal was reached while the three were at a gathering at the Ivy League school.
Huri’s lawyer claims the money was a gift to Ernst, who was in financial trouble at the time because he was unable to host his private tennis camps in Georgetown while the school built a new athletics center.
“What did the Georgetown family do for him?” They did nothing, “Black told jurors in his closing remarks. “They abandoned him. The only family that helped him was the Huri family, and they want to make that a crime.
Former Staples CEO John Wilson received the longest sentence in 15 months
The defense claims that Donovan “fabricated” this story to avoid being charged with tax crimes.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Kearney told jurors that Huri’s daughter did not have the academic results to enter Georgetown and is ranked at the bottom of her high school tennis team, which is ranked at the bottom of her league.
“She didn’t have a chance to enter on merit,” she argued.
A total of more than 50 Varsity Blues parents pleaded guilty and three others were convicted in the trial. Another parent was pardoned by former President Donald Trump, and another coach’s case was dropped after he agreed to pay a fine.
John Wilson, a former CEO of Staples Inc., received the longest sentence in 15 months after being found guilty of paying bribes to bring his son to the USC as a water polo rookie and his twin daughters at Harvard. and Stanford.
With postal wires
Add Comment