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BOSTON – The imminent decision of a federal judge in the college admissions scandal could determine whether wealthy parents in the case are subject to a significant jail sentence – or if they go to court. content with a pat on the fingers.
The question revolves around two key questions: who were the victims of the scheme and how much money did they lose?
Prosecutors said the victims were the universities and the test companies, and the amount that the parents had paid for the fraud was to be used to replace the losses suffered by the victims. Parents who pay more for bribes should face heavier sentences, they say.
However, the Probation and Hearing Services of the United States, which prepares the preliminary investigation reports for each accused, assert that the universities and test companies did not suffer pecuniary loss. The price of the parents' bribes is therefore irrelevant for the sentences, the office said.
Judge Indira Talwani of the Federal Court heard Tuesday the arguments for this debate in the Federal Court. She is expected to make a decision before the scheduled hearing of the conviction of actress Felicity Huffman on Friday.
If Talwani adheres to the arguments of the probation office, parents involved in the case, including Huffman and actress Lori Loughlin, could be sentenced to shorter prison terms, or even a probation sentence.
Loughlin pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to launder money. Each charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
A decision against the prosecutors would also jeopardize their persistent desire to send these parents to prison to try to show that no one is above the law.
"(No) other form of sanction makes it clear that all Americans are required to abide by the rules and must also be held responsible for violating them," said American lawyer Andrew Lelling in a recent paper.
"The confinement at home would be a penological joke, evoking images of the defendants who were waiting for the curfew to end around impressive homes, the probation with community service is too lenient and too easily co-opted for its value of" PR "a fine It does not make sense to the accused rich enough to commit this crime in the first place, "wrote Lelling.
Out of more than 50 parents, coaches, test administrators and conspirators, only one has been convicted. Former Stanford coach John Vandemoer was sentenced to two years of probation – but no jail time.
A technical debate with major implications
The judicial debate presented Tuesday in court is related to the level of the accused's offense in federal sentencing guidelines, which provide for a range of possible sanctions. Judges are not required to follow these guidelines.
More than 30 parents have been accused of conspiring with the scammed brain, Rick Singer, to cheat on standardized tests or to bribe college coaches so their kids have an advantage in the process of admission. More than a dozen of these parents, including Huffman, have already pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud.
These parents signed plea agreements in which federal prosecutors agreed to recommend that they serve their sentence in the lower range of federal sentencing guidelines. In fraud cases, these ranges are more serious depending on the cost of fraud. As a general rule, the more a victim loses money in a fraud, the harder his sentence is.
Huffman, for example, admitted to having paid $ 15,000 for his daughter's SAT test. Another parent, Stephen Semprevivo, admitted to having paid $ 400,000 for his child to go to Georgetown University, on the pretext that he was a tennis rookie. Advocates use the respective totals to calculate how much time they should be in jail. Semprevivo faces a heavier sentence than Huffman.
But in the admissions scam, losses due to fraud are more ephemeral, said CNN's legal analyst Elie Honig. Fraud cases usually result in obvious financial losses that play a role in sentencing calculations, but this is not clear in the scam of college admissions.
"Here, the amount paid in bribes is $ 15,000, but who exactly lost $ 15,000?" Honig said.
"This is not your traditional calculation of fraud loss," he added.
In court on Tuesday, Judge Talwani asked prosecutors to determine the amount of loss suffered by the victims in this case.
"It is clearly impossible to separate by anyone," said American lawyer Eric Rosen.
In one lawsuit, prosecutors said the precise amount lost by universities and testing firms was "difficult if not impossible" to calculate.
Nevertheless, they said that USC and Georgetown had lost the value of their employees' honest services, the cost of internal investigations and the loss of their reputations, which could mean that they would see fewer claims at the same time. to come up. In addition, they stated that the test companies had lost their salaries due to supervisory bribery, internal investigation costs and loss of earnings due to the lower number of exam students.
However, a lawyer from Semprevivo, one of the parents in the case, said that these losses were "non-existent or speculative".
Regardless of the decision made by Talwani, Huffman should be the first parent to be convicted in this case during a hearing held on Friday. Prior to her conviction, Huffman wrote to the court that she regretted having paid $ 15,000 to cheat on her daughter's SAT test.
"In my desperate desire to be a good mother, I persuaded myself that all I was doing was giving my daughter a free kick," the letter says. "I see the irony in this statement now because what I have done is the opposite of justice.I've broken the law, cheated the middle of the education. , betrayed my daughter and let my family down. "
Mark Morales from CNN contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire ™ and © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
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