A 53-year old business executive from Los Angeles has been sentenced to 4 months imprisonment for his part in the pay-not-play admissions scandal. Devin Sloane paid $250,000 to get his son admitted to USC as a fake water polo recruit.
Sloane pleaded guilty in May to 1 count of fraud and conspiracy as part of a deal with prosecutors. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani also ordered Sloane to do 500 hours of community service over 2 years of supervised release and to pay a fine of $95,000. He becomes the 2nd parent sentenced in the scandal; award-winning actress Felicity Huffman was given a 14-day prison sentence earlier this month and ordered to pay $30,000 in fines and perform 250 hours of community service after paying $15,000 to alter her daughter’s SAT score.
According to investigators, Sloane fabricated documents that showed his son as an international water polo star, in spite of him having never played the sport, and even bought water polo gear and staged action shots in the family swimming pool. He then paid $200,000 to a charity operated by the mastermind of the project and ‘admissions consultant’ William “Rick” Singer, and an another $50,000 to an account controlled by former USC athletics official Donna Heinel.
Prosecutors recommended 1 year and 1 day in prison with a $75,000 fine and a year of supervised release, based on the “unusual lengths” that Sloane undertook in pursuing the deception. Sloane’s lawyers asked for no prison time, 3 years of supervised release, a $75,000 fine, and 2,000 hours of community service. Sloane intended to undertake that community service by launching a new national Special Olympics program at private schools.
Sloane himself is a USC graduate and the founder of the water systems company AquaTecture, which plans and designs water infrastructure projects, focusing on those that it calls “both profitable and socially responsible.” His son, Mateo, was accepted to USC as a water polo recruit in March 2018.
In total, 15 parents have pleaded guilty in the scheme, while 19 are fighting the charges. Also charged in the scheme is former USC water polo coach Jovan Vavic, who was indicted for his part in the scheme. Officials allege that a portion of the money paid into the charity fund was used to fund Vavic’s water polo team. They also allege that Singer paid for Vavic’s children to attend private school.
This case is one of 2 believed to have involved the USC water polo program. Vavic was fired after details leaked out implicating him. Vavic has not yet been sentenced, though the Stanford sailing coach was given 1 day in prison for his participation in the scam.
Vavic, a former head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Water Polo team, had become the head coach of both the men’s and women’s water polo teams at USC since 1992. He was named the National Coach of the Year 15 times, the MPSF Coach of the Year 13 times, won 16 NCAA National Championships, coached 14 Cutino Award winners as the best player in the country, and in 2015 was named the Pac-12 Coach of the Century.
For trying to be a good Dad and help his son? Where is the crime – thought it was a free country.
Sorry to disappoint you, but it isn’t free – it’s ruled by laws.
…. really?
Lmao wtf what’s the point
it sounds like something awesome could come out of this with Sloane’s intended community service. Silver lining!
Hopefully! I’d rather see an effort at Special Olympics in disadvantaged areas (or just everywhere) than at private schools but it still could be a plus for society.
edit….reading the NYT article it says that his proposed “community service” was denied by the judge: “Judge Talwani ordered Mr. Sloane to take part in 500 hours of community service. But those hours were not, she said, to be spent doing high-level organizational work for the Special Olympics. Instead he should work directly with disadvantaged parents and children…”
The guy will fake his community service hours almost guaranteed.
I’m sure that’s what he and his lawyer intended it to sound like.
There seems to be a lot of unequal justice in these cases.
Seems like the charges were pretty different?
The difference has to be that Felicity Huffman paid a lot less money for her fraud. In general, I think buying a fudged SAT score is more egregious than buying a kid’s way into school, but the whole matter with the falsifying photographs and the lengths to which Sloane went to get his son in shows a much higher degree of deception.
I think the opposite but we’re just a couple of non-legal bystanders welcome to different opinions. The lengths he went to to stage water polo action shots of his son make his case kind of funny to me (not sure if that should equate to greater or lesser punishment 🙂 ).
I just read the NYT article on his sentencing and it goes into some details on why he probably got more time. Essentially it sounds like the judge felt like he still wasn’t showing remorse or accepting responsibility for what he did, she had some pretty scathing things to say to him and his lawyer!
At least these people are getting some actual jail time. Also, keep in… Read more »
In this Twitter thread from a reporter who was there, he says they took particular issue with Sloane getting his child directly involved. The judge said he “literally threw his kid into the family pool.”
https://twitter.com/ChrisVillani44/status/1176542295262236672?s=20