BOSTON — A federal judge has set aside the conviction of a former University of Southern California water polo coach charged with participating in a vast U.S. college admissions fraud and bribery scheme and on Thursday ordered a new trial.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston said the prosecution during closing arguments misstated what it needed to prove for jurors to find Jovan Vavic guilty of accepting bribes to help wealthy parents’ children gain admission to USC.
Vavic’s lawyers and the prosecution did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
His trial was the second to result from the “Operation Varsity Blues” investigation, which exposed how wealthy parents went to extremes to secure spots for their children at schools like Stanford, Yale and USC.
They did so with the help of William “Rick” Singer, a California college admissions consultant who admitted in 2019 to facilitating college entrance exam cheating and bribing coaches to secure his clients’ children’s admission as phony athletes.
Prosecutors had claimed that in exchange for about $200,000 bribes, Vavic misled USC admissions officials into believing that unqualified high school students belonged on his championship water polo team.
Because prosecutors said much of that money, $100,000, was to designate the son of a private equity financier as a fake athletic recruit, Talawani said the government needed to prove the money benefited Vavic while harming USC’s interests.
But Talwani said a prosecutor misstated the law by arguing during closing arguments that jurors could convict Vavic based solely on a misrepresentation and professional benefits he gained from bringing in money and nothing more.
“And, however distasteful, there is nothing inherently illegal about a private institution accepting money in exchange for a student’s admission,” Talwani said.
Fifty-three other people have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial, including actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. Two parents were convicted in one trial, while another was acquitted in June.