Jovan Vavic, former head coach of the University of Southern California’s water polo teams, was convicted by a federal jury Friday in connection with soliciting and accepting bribes to promote the admission of students to USC as purported athletic recruits.
The conviction was on all charges after a five-week trial. The charges include conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud, which provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison; conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, which provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison; and wire fraud and honest services wire fraud, which provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing will take place at a later date.
Vavic’s conviction brings to 54 the number of convictions in the Varsity Blues admissions scandal. The only defendant without a conviction was pardoned by President Trump on his last day in office.
“With today’s conviction, the government has now held 55 individuals accountable for what is arguably one of the largest scandals in academia history,” said U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins. “To say that the conduct in this case is reprehensible is an understatement. The rich, powerful and famous, dripping with privilege and entitlement, used their clout and money to steal college admissions spots from more hardworking, qualified and deserving students. This case was a righteous one, and I could not be prouder of our prosecutors in securing this verdict.”
Most of those convicted were parents or coaches.
The Case Against Vavic
Beginning in 2013, Rick Singer, the mastermind of the scandal, made payments to a USC account that funded Vavic’s teams and paid private school tuition for his children. In return Vavic would flag students as purported water polo players to be admitted as recruited athletes. Vavic also agreed to recruit other coaches to join in the scheme.
Vavic was a highly successful coach and served as head coach of the men’s and women’s water polo teams at USC for more than 20 years. During this time, he led the teams to more than a dozen national championships. USC fired Vavic after his arrest in 2019.
Prosecutors noted that Vavic was an employee of a university (as were others who pleaded guilty). Joleen D. Simpson, special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation division, said, “Without the willful participation of university coaches and officials like Mr. Vavic, this scheme would have failed at the outset. Instead, Mr. Vavic and others abused the positions they held at prestigious universities for nothing other than financial gain.”
Prosecutors in the case used testimony from, among others, a former USC soccer coach, Ali Khosroshahin. The Los Angeles Times reported that he said Singer had also asked him to help get clients’ children admitted as soccer recruits in exchange for payments to the soccer program. When Khosroshahin initially balked, saying it “wasn’t right,” Singer called him a “boy scout,” said he needed to “stop being so black and white and look for the gray,” and told him to talk with Vavic, he said.
Khosroshahin, who has pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit racketeering in a deal with the government, said he met with Vavic in his office. He said this of Vavic’s advice: “He was very straightforward. His reaction was—this is exactly what he said. He said, ‘F— ’em. Just do it. And tell them that they’re the best players you’ve seen.’”
Vavic’s main defense was that the prosecution ignored the way USC factored a family’s ability to donate into admissions decisions.
A Sentencing
Also on Friday, Mark Riddell received a four-month sentence for his role in the scandal. Riddell admitted to taking $240,000 in bribes to help people cheat on the SAT and the ACT.
Here’s how prosecutors described what he did: “In many cases, Singer facilitated the cheating by counseling his clients to seek extended time on the exams, including by having their children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain the required medical documentation. Once the extended time was granted, Singer instructed the clients to change the location of the exams to one of two test centers: a public high school in Houston, Texas, or a private college preparatory school in West Hollywood, Calif. Singer had established relationships at those locations with test administrators Niki Williams and Igor Dvorskiy, who admitted to accepting bribes of $5,000 to $10,000 per test in order to facilitate the cheating scheme. Specifically, Williams and Dvorskiy allowed Riddell to take the exams in place of the students; to give the students the correct answers during the exams; or to correct the students’ answers after they completed the exams.”
Riddell was also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and forfeit $239,449. (The government has already collected $165,878.)
Singer typically paid Riddell $10,000 for each test. Singer’s clients paid him between $15,000 and $75,000 per test.
