By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -A U.S. appeals court on Friday reinstated a former University of Southern California water polo coach’s bribery conviction arising from his role in the nationwide “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal.
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a trial judge wrongly overturned a jury’s 2022 verdict finding Jovan Vavic guilty of conspiring to commit federal programs bribery by accepting payments to help wealthy parents’ children gain admission to USC as fake athletic recruits.
The judge had set Vavic’s conviction aside and ordered a new trial after concluding the prosecution during closing arguments misstated what it needed legally to prove its case, which arose out of the investigation dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues.”
But U.S. Circuit Judge Julie Rikelman, writing for a three-judge panel, said that while part of Vavic’s conviction could no longer stand following an appellate ruling in a different “Varsity Blues” case, the prosecution’s closing arguments were not contrary to the judge’s jury instructions on the law.
The ruling opens the door to Vavic being sentenced three years after the jury’s verdict. His lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
He was among dozens of people charged in 2019 in the investigation, which exposed how some wealthy parents went to extreme lengths to secure spots for their children at schools like Yale, Georgetown and USC.
They did so with the help of William “Rick” Singer, a California college admissions consultant who was sentenced in 2023 to 3-1/2 years in prison after admitting he facilitated college entrance exam cheating and helped bribe coaches to secure his clients’ children’s admission as phony athletes.
More than 50 people, including coaches and parents, pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors claimed that in exchange for more than $200,000, Vavic helped mislead USC admissions officials into believing children of Singer’s clients belonged on his championship team.
While prosecutors said some money that Singer paid went toward Vavic’s children’s private school tuition, another $100,000 went to a USC account used to fund the water polo team.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by David Gregorio)
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