U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled that the amount of money a defendant spent to take part in the “Operation Varsity Blues” scandal will no longer affect their sentences.
Talwani said she will consider criteria besides bribe amounts when sentencing those implicated in the college admissions scandal, a decision that came right before actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced to two weeks in prison and fined $30,000 for her role in the scheme.
Huffman paid $15,000 to raise her daughter’s SAT scores. Other wealthy parents bribed athletic faculty and officials at universities including USC, Stanford and UCLA to have their children admitted using fake athletic profiles. The ruling did not impact Huffman, who paid thousands less than other parents involved in the scheme.
Nineteen of the cases described in the FBI investigation involved the parents of students who sought admission to USC through the scheme.
Rebecca Lonergan, a former prosecutor and professor of lawyering skills at USC, said the sentencing will be likely more nuanced, focusing on each defendant’s role in the scheme rather than the amount of money they paid.
According to Cornell Law School’s website, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are non-binding rules that set out a uniform sentencing policy for defendants in the United States. Because the guidelines are non-binding, the proposed sentences act only as suggestions for district courts.
However, district courts are required to calculate what a sentence would be under the federal guidelines before a sentencing hearing. In cases of fraud and bribery, this calculation must take into account the amount of money involved.
According to Lonergan, Talwani is within her rights as a district judge not to abide by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. However, her announcement that she doesn’t intend to take into account the amount of money paid by each defendant during sentencing may invite future appeals.
“She’s probably going to get a whole bunch of appeals now if she makes it really obvious that she’s disregarding the amount of money because that runs contrary to what the sentencing guidelines advice to her is,” said Lonergan.
Socioeconomic status, which was central to admissions scheme itself, can often have an impact on what kind of sentences defendants receive. According to Lonergan, many defendants from low socioeconomic backgrounds end up with much harsher sentences than their wealthier counterparts. The wealthy can afford, “really good counsel and they know how to fight the case,” said Lonergan.
Meanwhile, many USC students are becoming increasingly indifferent to whether or not Huffman and her wealthy peers serve jail time. Instead, students are beginning to question how justice can effectively be given to the invisible victims of the scandal — the students who lost out on admission to USC because they didn’t have families who could afford to pay their way in.
“I don’t necessarily think that it’s something people should go to prison for, but I think that definitely some reparations need to be made,” USC student Jonathan Kubiak said. “I think it really affects a lot of people not just students and families of those who weren’t admitted. I don’t know… how much can be done to compensate for that.”
USC student Bianca Moran said the admissions scandal was proof of inequalities in the college admissions process, but she said she doesn’t think sentencing wealthy parents involved in the scheme will create change at universities.
“If we’re talking about how to remedy the situation those are much larger structural issues,” Moran said. “[The defendants or] whoever else benefited from their whiteness and their privilege should go ahead and pay the fines of all of the black women and black parents and other parents of color who have been penalized for trying to send their children to better schools.”
On Tuesday, Devin Sloan was sentenced to four months in prison, fined $95,000 and given 500 hours of community service. Sloan is the first USC-related parent to be sentenced in relation to the admissions scandal.
Sentencing for Stephen Semprevivo, another parent who took part in the scandal, will take place on Thursday. According to the L.A. Times, defense attorneys for Semprevivo are seeking community service and probation for their client rather than any significant jail time. In her report, Talwani states that her final sentences “will be determined with consideration of all of the factors set forth.”