Yet another well-to-do parent has gone down in the name of getting their kid into a top-tier college. Gamal Abdelaziz, a gaming executive who worked for Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts International, has been sentenced to one year in prison for paying $300,000 in bribes to get his daughter into the University of Southern California.
About 50 parents have been charged in a scandal that’s dubbed Operation Varsity Blues, in which adults paid William “Rick” Singer to get their kids into college for a lofty fee. As illustrated in the Netflix documentary: Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal, Singer promised parents access to a “side door” of admissions—posing his prospects as varsity athletes or sending phony test scores to schools including USC, Yale University, Stanford University, and Georgetown University, just to name a few.
The scandal implicated major stars like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin starting in 2019, when federal prosecutors started announcing charges against parents who had worked with Singer. The list now includes dozens of convictions and indictments—but Abdelaziz’ sentencing is the longest yet. John Wilson, a former executive of Staples and founder of a private equity firm, was convicted at the same time as Abdelaziz and his sentencing is scheduled to happen on Wednesday.
According to the Department of Justice, Abdelaziz was indicted for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud as well as conspiracy to commit bribery. In October 2021, he was convicted by a federal jury and sentenced on Feb. 9, 2022 to one year and one day in prison. The 65-year-old former exec is also on the hook for 400 hours of community service and a $250,000 fine.
Abdelaziz had agreed to pay Singer to get his daughter into USC as a basketball recruit, although his “daughter had not played basketball in well over a year and she had never been a member of her high school’s varsity basketball team,” according to the DOJ.
First trials in the Operation Varsity Blues scandal
The first Operation Varsity Blues trial started in the fall when Abdelaziz was convicted. He and Wilson were convicted in October for buying their kids’ ways into college. Wilson’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 16. As of the time of Abdelaziz’s trial last fall, 33 parents had pleaded guilty as part of the scandal.
During the trial, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton told Abdelaziz that he had showed a “lack of integrity, morality and common sense” by cheating his daughter’s way into USC, according to reporting by Reuters.
“It boggles the mind, and yet you did just that,” Gorton told Abdelaziz, according to Reuters. “In doing so, in essence you stole an admission spot at a good college from a deserving student who did not have all of your advantages.”
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