Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to Everything's Political. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Tayo Shoemak. You can also find us online at Everything's
Speaker 1: Political dot substack dot com. Shout out to Magicman Joe Strecker,
Speaker 1: the Merle Haggard of podcast producers.
Speaker 2: I've been a work in man named all the lad
Speaker 2: yet as long as my due hadn't been used, I've
Speaker 2: bring a little bear that even man and s work.
Speaker 1: That's right. Merle Haggard passed away on this day in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. But get this, Joe, he was also born
Speaker 1: on this day in nineteen thirty seven. He was born
Speaker 1: and died on the same exact day. Now, only an
Speaker 1: excellent musician has that kind of timing. I'm just saying. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the American country music star his good lord. His career
Speaker 1: spanned for at least four decades. He had thirty eight
Speaker 1: number one hits like Mama Tried, Oki from Muskoky, and
Speaker 1: of course Work in Man Blues. He released seventy albums
Speaker 1: and six hundred songs, two hundred and fifty of which
Speaker 1: he wrote himself. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame in nineteen seventy seven and into the Country
Speaker 1: Music Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety four, six one
Speaker 1: hundred songs. That, my friends, is what we used to
Speaker 1: call a real content producer, is it not, Joe? I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, you know, I'm not a huge country fan,
Speaker 1: but I do like the old stuff because they wrote,
Speaker 1: for the most part about real life and hard times,
Speaker 1: and most of them you could see it all over
Speaker 1: their face. And that's actually a great segue into our
Speaker 1: interview today, because Wow, we have a family that has
Speaker 1: gone through some hard times and found out how far
Speaker 1: they're willing to go and how hard they're willing to
Speaker 1: fight to save their own reputation. So take us out, Joe, everybody,
Speaker 1: buckle up.
Speaker 3: Save as the.
Speaker 1: Okay. With us today is John Wilson, author of Varsity Blues,
Speaker 1: the Scandal within the Scandal, and he's going to speak
Speaker 1: with us about how his family was swept up in
Speaker 1: the college admissions process melee with USC and you all
Speaker 1: remember Felicity Huffman and Laurie Laughlin were also in that scandal,
Speaker 1: but John and his family were different, and an overreaching
Speaker 1: federal prosecution team weaponized that justice system against him and
Speaker 1: his family for their own gain and he'll also talk
Speaker 1: with us about that ongoing battle against that federal team
Speaker 1: and USC and Netflix, all hopefully to restore his family's honor.
Speaker 1: John Wilson, thank you so much for being here and
Speaker 1: sharing your story.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here, and I really want to
Speaker 3: get our story out there.
Speaker 1: Oh man. Okay. So I read a lot of the
Speaker 1: documentation and it's just infuriating. It's a rabbit hole down
Speaker 1: which people must go, I think to understand the depth
Speaker 1: of corruption under which your family suffered. And I think,
Speaker 1: first of all, let me say this that all of
Speaker 1: the core convictions against you have been overturned by a
Speaker 1: federal appeals court. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yeahs, they overturned.
Speaker 1: Okay, And I think a great place to start after
Speaker 1: that is just to outline and remind our audience the
Speaker 1: college admissions scandal was I think for the most part,
Speaker 1: if not all of them, California families, because we have
Speaker 1: USC and these family Yes, they were involved in falsifying
Speaker 1: not just academic records and having people take exams for them,
Speaker 1: the college entrance exams, but also athletic credentials. And then
Speaker 1: the business of the admissions process and what donations have
Speaker 1: to do with that process that USC ratified for you all,
Speaker 1: but then change their mind later down the road. So
Speaker 1: can we start with and Johnny was the was your
Speaker 1: son that was ultimately admitted. He was admitted to USC.
Speaker 1: He was a walk on, not a scholarship. Is that accurate?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a walk on player. He played on
Speaker 3: the team the entire season in postseason.
Speaker 1: And can you tell us his athletic career up to
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, he had an extraordinary career. When he was a
Speaker 3: young child, he had a world record. He was the
Speaker 3: youngest person ever to swim from alcatratus to shore. He
Speaker 3: was on the Oprah Show. He and his fourth grade
Speaker 3: classmates raised fifty three thousand dollars And that's just a
Speaker 3: typical example of what he would do. He competed nationally
Speaker 3: and internationally for ten years in swimming. His swim times
Speaker 3: were better than Johnny Weissmuller's gold medal times in the Olympics,
Speaker 3: So that's how good he was. He played water pool
Speaker 3: for six years on national teams. He played on the
Speaker 3: Stanford club team and his high school and middle school team,
Speaker 3: and he was always a starter on those teams. And
Speaker 3: he competed in the national Junior Olympics. Every year he
Speaker 3: won first place in one of the national Junior Olympics tournaments,
Speaker 3: and he was also selected twice for the US Olympic
Speaker 3: team for their development program. So he was the real deal.
Speaker 3: His high school coach, who was also nationally recognized, he
Speaker 3: was a two time MVP when he played water polo
Speaker 3: in college, he was also an Olympic player. He recommended
Speaker 3: my son to the USC coaches. He called them and
Speaker 3: he testified, and he said, undoubtedly my son was a
Speaker 3: Division one athlete. My son was being recruited by the
Speaker 3: Division one schools as well, and his swim times proved
Speaker 3: he was one of the fastest players on the US's team.
Speaker 3: So most of that of this couldn't be brought into
Speaker 3: our trial. His world record couldn't be brought into his trial.
Speaker 3: My son's coach couldn't even bring his swim time into
Speaker 3: the trial because the judge argued that that was the
Speaker 3: swim time from the swim team and he was the
Speaker 3: water polo coach and he didn't witness at time, so
Speaker 3: he couldn't bring it in. And that's how rageous the
Speaker 3: trial was. Right, So my son was a real player.
Speaker 3: He joined the team. Leslie and I traveled thousands of
Speaker 3: miles to visit him, to watch him at practices, watch
Speaker 3: him at games, and cheer the team on. He was
Speaker 3: a red shirt like ten other red shirts on the team.
Speaker 3: Water Polo is the sport were speed is the most
Speaker 3: important skill, and he's one of the fastest. But they
Speaker 3: also only have six players on a water polo team
Speaker 3: that play offense and defense in addition to the goalie.
Speaker 3: The US team was national champions they had thirty six players,
Speaker 3: so only about ten or twelve played. He was a
Speaker 3: red shirt like ten other red shirt players, so he
Speaker 3: practiced the team throughout the entire season in postseason, but
Speaker 3: he didn't play in games his first year. Most freshmen
Speaker 3: would rarely play on a national championship team in terms
Speaker 3: of games, so he was one of the star players.
Speaker 3: He was one of the fastest players, and yet they
Speaker 3: ridiculed him, and the federal government said falsely that he
Speaker 3: was an alleged athlete. That's what they said to the meet,
Speaker 3: he was an alleged athlete and that he wasn't qualified
Speaker 3: to play, and who are they to judge and to
Speaker 3: say that right, They just fed the media that kind
Speaker 3: of false narrative, and you can imagine how devastating that
Speaker 3: would be for my son. He was twenty years old
Speaker 3: at the time. His entire life he had been spent
Speaker 3: in academics and athletics, and he's spent probably five hundred
Speaker 3: to seven and fifty hours a year for ten years
Speaker 3: training in swimming and water pool at the national and
Speaker 3: international level. And to have federal prosecutors be rate you
Speaker 3: and say you're an alleged athlete or that you weren't
Speaker 3: qualified was despicable and just a horrific experience. And to
Speaker 3: this day he still lives to that stigma. Where do
Speaker 3: you go to get your reputation back, earn that back?
Speaker 3: And that was just part of it. The same thing
Speaker 3: with my daughters. My twin daughters were also spired foalcy
Speaker 3: by prosecutors. They worked hard, studied hard, got a perfect
Speaker 3: score on the Act and a ninety nine percentile score.
Speaker 3: Fewer than five thousand students worldwide out of one point
Speaker 3: eight million get a perfect score, so they were very
Speaker 3: talented and get the prosecutors said they were unqualified. They
Speaker 3: were sixteen years old, my twin daughters. You know how
Speaker 3: fragile teenage girls can be. Yes, And imagine being a
Speaker 3: sixteen year old and having the federal government tell the
Speaker 3: world you're not qualified and imply that you cheated on
Speaker 3: your test when you didn't, And how do you prove
Speaker 3: to your other students and other people that you didn't cheat.
Speaker 3: The government never alleged they cheated, because we got lumped
Speaker 3: in with thirty other parents who did cheat. It was
Speaker 3: guilt by association. They all cheated, so people in the
Speaker 3: media assumed that we had cheated when we didn't, and
Speaker 3: we were never accused of cheating, but we got lumped
Speaker 3: in and smeared anyway, And being a sixteen year old
Speaker 3: girl with all the normal peer pressure and other issues
Speaker 3: growing up as a young girl, teenage girl, having the
Speaker 3: feedow government imply that you cheated has been devastating for them.
Speaker 3: And that's why I want to spend the time to
Speaker 3: correct the record.
Speaker 1: Now were they were they part of this?
Speaker 3: They were, they were part of this process as well,
Speaker 3: so they were accused during the setup calls. We had
Speaker 3: known singer for ten years and had trusted him by
Speaker 3: the time we were talking about my daughters, and they tried
Speaker 3: to infuse i'll say, incriminating sound bites in the setup
Speaker 3: calls they had for six months. They tried to set
Speaker 3: me up with Singer and with the let me step back.
Speaker 3: The context is important. Singer had over three thousand parent clients.
Speaker 3: Only one percent were ever charged. The vast majority of
Speaker 3: Singer's clients were honest, hardworking people, people like Steve Jobs
Speaker 3: even as a client. So he had many famous people,
Speaker 3: and most people were honest people like I was. And
Speaker 3: he did legitimate services. He did real tutoring through his
Speaker 3: company for kids, and his tutors helped my children a lot.
Speaker 3: He did real college counseling, He did real charity work.
Speaker 3: I drove my son from northern California to Sacramento from
Speaker 3: the Bay Area on weekends to help him do tutoring
Speaker 3: for inner city kids. I was an inner city kid
Speaker 3: growing up myself. I grew up in Hartford in the projects,
Speaker 3: so I like that. So he did real service, real work,
Speaker 3: legitimate work, and ninety nine percent of his clients were
Speaker 3: never charged. They were innocent people. So that's the overall
Speaker 3: context that what happened about thirty parents were explicitly involved
Speaker 3: in doing bad things. They were cheating on tests. They
Speaker 3: talked about cheating on tests. How much it cost to
Speaker 3: get this grade in that grade. They're paying people to
Speaker 3: take their kids tests, they were falsifying records for their kids,
Speaker 3: taking fake pictures and so forth. And they were also
Speaker 3: bribing coaches. They were talking explicitly about bribing coaches. I
Speaker 3: never did any of that. The closest they got in
Speaker 3: my trial was they had thirty other parents talking about
Speaker 3: bribing coaches and doing bad things, and they played that
Speaker 3: over those tape recordings over and over for the jury.
Speaker 3: Then during my setup calls Singer says to me, are
Speaker 3: you okay if we give a check to the coach?
Speaker 3: I say, yes, We always give a check to the coach.
Speaker 3: It was a check made out to the school. Just
Speaker 3: like at USC, you have to give the check to somebody,
Speaker 3: you give them credit. You don't just throw the check
Speaker 3: in the pool. So we said, yes, give a check
Speaker 3: to the coach. It was made out to USC, and
Speaker 3: we got a receipt for it. But the jury only
Speaker 3: hears thirty other parents bribing the coach again and again
Speaker 3: and again, and then in my recording, he says, are
Speaker 3: you okay if we give a check to the coach,
Speaker 3: and they assume that's a bribe. No, it was a
Speaker 3: check to the coach made out to the school, not
Speaker 3: a check or cash to the coach for his personal account.
Speaker 3: And that kind of thing happened over and over. That's
Speaker 3: as close as they got to incriminating evidence on me.
Speaker 3: But they can set you up that way. So even
Speaker 3: though my son really played on the team, they also
Speaker 3: got one of the USC assistant coaches who confessed to
Speaker 3: committing fraud but didn't get arrested and didn't get fired
Speaker 3: by USC. In fact, he got promoted by USC. He testified. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so he testified that my son was only there the
Speaker 3: first day. That was not true. We had a picture
Speaker 3: of the team picture, by the way, was taking several
Speaker 3: weeks into the season, and guests who was standing right
Speaker 3: next to my son that coach, But we couldn't bring
Speaker 3: that evidence in, right, So there could be all kinds
Speaker 3: of things the government can do in this process that
Speaker 3: would just scare the average person. For example, government witnesses
Speaker 3: can lie in the stand. The only people can charge
Speaker 3: your government witness with perjury is the government. What do
Speaker 3: you think the odds are of the government charging one
Speaker 3: of their own witnesses who's helping them with perjury? Very
Speaker 3: very low. And so you can do all kinds of
Speaker 3: things to tilt the playing field, and that's what they did.
Speaker 3: They had people who were literally committing perjury on the stand.
Speaker 3: They brought in other people's evidence had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with me, and then they blocked my evidence six hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty times. They blocked by evidence six imagine that.
Speaker 3: So that wasn't just irrelevant evidence. It was things like
Speaker 3: my daughter's perfect Act test store that wasn't allowed into
Speaker 3: my trial. The judge say, was hearsay irrelevant my son's
Speaker 3: swim time. That was part of the reasons that my
Speaker 3: charges all get overturned. But my son's swim time was
Speaker 3: also blocked. My own emails showing that I trusted Singer
Speaker 3: were blocked from my trial, and USC records showing they
Speaker 3: gave donors admissions boosts more than one hundred examples of
Speaker 3: that were blocked from my trial. So they blocked ninety
Speaker 3: eight point three percent of my evidence. Literally ninety eight
Speaker 3: percent of my office was blocked. And then they brought
Speaker 3: in all these other parents' bad acts and smeared me
Speaker 3: with that, And so it was just a totally unfair
Speaker 3: trial that was so outraged that eleven former US attorneys
Speaker 3: appointed by both Republican and Democrat presidents. Chief attorneys wrote
Speaker 3: a letter unpaid by me, to the court saying John
Speaker 3: Wilson did not receive a fair trial. That never happens,
Speaker 3: it's so rare. And then the appeals court unanimously overturned
Speaker 3: all of my core convictions. So this process has been
Speaker 3: outrageous from day one, and it's probably we're talking about
Speaker 3: why they went after me and why I was so
Speaker 3: different than all the other parents, because it's shocking. When
Speaker 3: people hear that, they say, wait a minute, why were
Speaker 3: you even charged? Right? These other parents confessed to bad acts.
Speaker 3: They were caught on audio bribing, cheating on tests, faking
Speaker 3: photos of their kids playing sports they didn't even play.
Speaker 3: Why were you lumped in here? Well, that's an important
Speaker 3: part of my story too, if you look back at
Speaker 3: what happened. The singer had several thousand clients. They were
Speaker 3: all primarily based in California. Ninety ninety five ye were
Speaker 3: in California. About thirty of them did these bad acts.
Speaker 3: Those thirty were primarily in California. The Felicity Huffins and
Speaker 3: Laura Laughlin's the Boston prosecutors uncovered this case from somebody
Speaker 3: in Connecticut, and they wanted to have the media spotlights
Speaker 3: and the trials for this case all take place in
Speaker 3: Boston instead of being handled by the LA prosecutors. So
Speaker 3: they needed some basis to justify bringing all these trials.
Speaker 3: I was the hook they needed to justify bringing all
Speaker 3: the trials for Felicity Huffman and Laura Lauflin. I was
Speaker 3: Singer's only client in Massachusetts. They had to charge at
Speaker 3: least one Massachusetts defendants and then say there was a
Speaker 3: conspiracy across all the parents to justify bringing all the trials.
Speaker 3: They literally to bring several hundred people from California, including
Speaker 3: all the witnesses, the coaches, and so forth, back and
Speaker 3: forth between California and Boston, with only one Boston defendant.
Speaker 3: It makes no sense from a cost point of view,
Speaker 3: efficiency point of view, time point of view, but they
Speaker 3: needed to do it to create the career spotlights they
Speaker 3: could help boost their own careers. So they charged me
Speaker 3: even though they had overwhelming the evidence that I was innocent,
Speaker 3: even though my facts are completely different than all the
Speaker 3: other parents, and then they roilroded me through a trial
Speaker 3: that was so unfair and overturned, which almost never happens,
Speaker 3: to really cover up the false charges against me. And
Speaker 3: so that's how we got ensnared in this horrific situation.
Speaker 3: It has been devastating. It's been almost seven years now.
Speaker 3: We had to fight to correct the record and clear
Speaker 3: our name, and they.
Speaker 1: Cherry picked the judge, they cherry picked the venue. And
Speaker 1: clearly the three key KPIs there. The athletic credentials, the
Speaker 1: academic records, and the donations process as it relates to admissions.
Speaker 1: You all did not fit that mold in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. And is it accurate that USC and
Speaker 1: I think the legal documentation uses the word ratified your
Speaker 1: donation with thank you cards.
Speaker 3: Yes, we got to thank your learn to receipt from
Speaker 3: the school.
Speaker 1: Yes on USC letterhead and copied the coach and assistant
Speaker 1: athletic director.
Speaker 3: Right, USC solicited a donation. We met with the school,
Speaker 3: we met with the development people, We met with the
Speaker 3: coach to verify our son's credentials, and they told us
Speaker 3: that they had walk on positions, non scholarship positions, and
Speaker 3: that if you make a donation to the school, that
Speaker 3: could help your admissions prospects. And so we talked to
Speaker 3: the donation department about that and we made a donation
Speaker 3: through Rick Singer's organization. We did that to largely insulate
Speaker 3: us from future requests. Most people don't have the history
Speaker 3: we have. We've given a lot of donations over the years,
Speaker 3: and when you give a lot of donations, especially large donations,
Speaker 3: the development department tend to keep coming back at you
Speaker 3: again and again. So to avoid being hounded, we made
Speaker 3: our donations through Singers organization and we verify with USC
Speaker 3: was that accepted to Yes, We've done that many times
Speaker 3: in the past. They verified that, and they gave us
Speaker 3: a receipt for our donations. Then at my trial they
Speaker 3: testified that essentially that wasn't allowed, that that was a bribe.
Speaker 3: So you gave me a receipt. I didn't know you
Speaker 3: gave out receipts for bribes. It's just crazy. It made
Speaker 3: no sense at all. And then the judge instructed the
Speaker 3: jury during my trial that, yes, giving a donation to
Speaker 3: a school can be a bribe to the coach, say
Speaker 3: what this is the first time. Another there's a group
Speaker 3: of law professors from Harvard and other schools and also
Speaker 3: wrote a support brief saying This is the first and
Speaker 3: only time in history that theons of a bribe can
Speaker 3: be the victim of the bribe. The schools said they
Speaker 3: were the victims of the bribe, but they got the money.
Speaker 3: It's not possible for the victim of a bribe, you're
Speaker 3: the one who got the money. You bribe somebody else
Speaker 3: to have somebody else do something on your behalf. The
Speaker 3: victim can't be the one who gets the money. And
Speaker 3: yet that's what the school was claiming. They were the victims,
Speaker 3: and they've kept my money to this day. So we
Speaker 3: have a lawsuit against USC for defraudius. They gave me
Speaker 3: a receipt and kept my money to this day and
Speaker 3: then set up my trial essentially that we were the
Speaker 3: victims and we were bribing the school, we being the USC.
Speaker 1: Right makes no sense. And so and just to verify
Speaker 1: your son's athletic record, and obviously your daughter's academic records,
Speaker 1: none of that. For instance, Johnny would have been registered
Speaker 1: as an NCAA athlete, would he not?
Speaker 3: He was, absolutely he was registered by the school as
Speaker 3: an NCAA athlete. He's still on the USC website showing
Speaker 3: him as a team member from the twenty fourteen team Wow,
Speaker 3: and there are medical records, but the trial blocked all
Speaker 3: of that. So in my trial, for example, he got
Speaker 3: a concussion while at school. He got taken out of
Speaker 3: the pool. He was thrown up in the pool. He
Speaker 3: got taken by one of his teammates, the goalie, who
Speaker 3: drove the team captain's car to take him to the
Speaker 3: USC hospital. It wasn't an emergency, but they want to
Speaker 3: get him the right away. He was vomiting and they
Speaker 3: took him to the USC hospital. They diagnosed him with
Speaker 3: a concussion, and then the athletic trainer for the team
Speaker 3: was sending emails back and forth to the USC hospital
Speaker 3: when can Johnny come back into the pool to train?
Speaker 3: He was out of the pool for six weeks, but
Speaker 3: he showed up every day at training above deck during
Speaker 3: those six weeks during his concussion protocols. All the information
Speaker 3: was blocked by the judge and by the prosecutor because
Speaker 3: it proved he was on the team. So the USC
Speaker 3: medical records and the emails from the training staff to
Speaker 3: the USC medical staff asking when can Johnny be back
Speaker 3: into the pool, that was all blocked.
Speaker 1: And under what premise was that blocked?
Speaker 3: It was blocked his hearsay, and the judges approved it.
Speaker 3: These were all legitimate motions, right, That's part of the
Speaker 3: reason why everything got overturned. Judge who was eighty six
Speaker 3: years old, rubber stamped every motion that the prosecutors made.
Speaker 3: We even had one of the senior prosecutors who left,
Speaker 3: and these guys got million dollar partner rules. He was
Speaker 3: at a after the trials were over. He left before
Speaker 3: the trial. He was at a law firm reunion where
Speaker 3: another lawyer who wasn't publicly hired by me but was
Speaker 3: helping us, was meeting and with this reunion with a
Speaker 3: number of colleagues, and they happened to bump into each
Speaker 3: other and they were talking and he said, Yeah, we
Speaker 3: were even shocked how supportive this judge was. That's what
Speaker 3: he said. He instinctively rubber stamped everything we wanted. And
Speaker 3: once he did that, we just kept going. That's what
Speaker 3: he said. So they were shocked at how supportive this
Speaker 3: judge was. The head of the office.
Speaker 1: Now, now, Johnny, is it accurate that he after that
Speaker 1: concussion in twenty fourteen, that that was pretty much his
Speaker 1: end of his career at the in the water polo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was his fourth concussion, and in high school
Speaker 3: he had a very severe concussion, and they measure your
Speaker 3: brain activity and brain process speed, so they have good protocols.
Speaker 3: And after his high school concussion, and it can happen
Speaker 3: to water pole a lot. The guys who are in
Speaker 3: the middle can throw their elbows when they're fighting for
Speaker 3: the ball. They can kick you when they're turning around
Speaker 3: and kicking kick you in the head. So you can
Speaker 3: get hit in the head quite a bit with elbows
Speaker 3: and knees and feet. And so he's had four concussions
Speaker 3: up three before this one, and so in high school
Speaker 3: the last one was pretty severe and his processing speed
Speaker 3: never recovered fully, so we knew he was already vulnerable.
Speaker 3: So this fourth concussion that happened in college, he said
Speaker 3: at the end of the season, he went back into
Speaker 3: the pool and trained the end. I need to protect
Speaker 3: my brain for my future career, so I can't risk
Speaker 3: having another concussion. So he resigned at the end of
Speaker 3: the season in a letter to the coach after the
Speaker 3: season in January of twenty fifteen and said, I need
Speaker 3: to protect my head for my future. And that was
Speaker 3: how his career was ended, and the prospector been like, well,
Speaker 3: this is also kind of planned. He was never on
Speaker 3: the team. He was never going to play, even though
Speaker 3: he played in national tournaments and he won first place
Speaker 3: in one of the national Junior Olympics tournaments. You know,
Speaker 3: just just crazy.
Speaker 1: So, just for the timeline's purpose, this was in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: He writes the letter to the coach resigning from the team.
Speaker 1: Resigning from the team, and I'm just assuming everyone goes
Speaker 1: about their business and what happens next, John, I mean,
Speaker 1: are you aware of what's going on?
Speaker 3: And not at all. We went to several games and practices.
Speaker 3: We were flying thousands of miles to go visit him
Speaker 3: in the school. We went and cheered the team on
Speaker 3: with the other parents and the other red shirts. So
Speaker 3: we went to multile games and practice. Everything was fine.
Speaker 3: We made a donation of the school. They gave us
Speaker 3: a receipt. Johnny went to school, he graduated from the school.
Speaker 3: So we thought everything was fine. Then in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: the government find Singer in twenty eighteen and confronts him
Speaker 3: with some facts and some very damning phone calls that
Speaker 3: he was making that they had recorded, and they got
Speaker 3: him to cooperate and try to set up other parents.
Speaker 3: So that's when he started making some set of calls.
Speaker 3: This is five years later, and this is when we're
Speaker 3: talking about my daughters who are now sixteen, my twin daughters,
Speaker 3: So that's when they're trying to set them up. So
Speaker 3: fast forward then to March of twenty nineteen. I was
Speaker 3: flying in. I was a consultant flying in from Europe
Speaker 3: to me with a client in Houston and a normal
Speaker 3: routine business meeting. I get off the plane in Houston
Speaker 3: and two FBI agents pulled me into a back room
Speaker 3: and arrest me and handcuffed me. And I said, what
Speaker 3: I'm in shock. I've never been arrested in my life,
Speaker 3: and they tell me I'm under arrest for honest services fraud.
Speaker 3: I said what, I said, what is that? What does
Speaker 3: that mean? You'll never guess what the FBI as is
Speaker 3: arresting And he told me, we don't know, we've never
Speaker 3: heard of it before. It that it's some really unusual
Speaker 3: charge we've never heard of before, but it's some kind
Speaker 3: of fraud.
Speaker 1: Why does that not surprise me?
Speaker 3: I said, how can that be? I said, you must
Speaker 3: have the wrong John Wilson SAI the Res said, you
Speaker 3: must have the wrong John Wilson. I said, there's fifteen
Speaker 3: thousand John Wilson's in the US. I said, I never
Speaker 3: committed for out of my life. And they say, what
Speaker 3: was your address? Blah blah blah outside of the Boston
Speaker 3: mass Oh, you're the mats. Use this guy. They say, no,
Speaker 3: you're the right guy. And so then they proceed to
Speaker 3: book me and it gets much scarier from here. They
Speaker 3: then bring me to a federal prison, not a jail,
Speaker 3: a federal prison. And here's what eight hundred inmates, this
Speaker 3: big fortress. They strip me down, bring me to the guards.
Speaker 3: They hand me off to these guards. They strip me down,
Speaker 3: throw me in this large shower room like a communal shower.
Speaker 3: Two guards pose me down with these power moses like
Speaker 3: an animal, and then they give me a jumpsuit. Right, so,
Speaker 3: now I'm just about to enter into this prison cell
Speaker 3: block and it's like one you see in the movies.
Speaker 3: It's a two story cell block. There's multile cell blocks
Speaker 3: in this large prison with about sixty inmates in this
Speaker 3: cell block in the common area mulling about, and the
Speaker 3: guard booth is all like plexiglass or bulletproof glass whatever
Speaker 3: windows looking in and I'm still telling the guards I'm talking,
Speaker 3: not worried about sharing anything, even though I don't have
Speaker 3: a lawyer, saying I don't even know why I'm here.
Speaker 3: They couldn't tell me that. Yeah, yeah right. I said, seriously,
Speaker 3: I have no idea why I'm even here. And the guard,
Speaker 3: one of the guards finally took some sympathy, said, maybe
Speaker 3: believe me. He said, well, you better watch your back
Speaker 3: in there, you know. And he says, you're the only
Speaker 3: old white guy in the cell block, and they're going
Speaker 3: to assume you're a pedophile. I said, well, they're going
Speaker 3: to falsely assume you're a pedophile because old white guys
Speaker 3: tend to be pedophiles, and they hate pedophiles in here,
Speaker 3: and someone's probably going to try to stab you with
Speaker 3: the ship. He says, to watch your back, So now
Speaker 3: you can imagine I'm terrified. I said, well, can you
Speaker 3: put me in to my prison cell and lock me
Speaker 3: in keep me safe? No, you can't. Lockdown's not till
Speaker 3: whatever nine o'clock tonight, and if you stay in your
Speaker 3: cell before then, they'll think you're a they'll really try
Speaker 3: to I said, what do I do? He says, watch
Speaker 3: your back? In there, if anybody comes behind you, watch
Speaker 3: your back. So now, literally, for the next day and
Speaker 3: a half, I'm in the cell block. This is on
Speaker 3: a Sunday, before I've got arrested, before an whe else
Speaker 3: is arrested. They did this just to try to intimidate me,
Speaker 3: and so they put me in the cell block and
Speaker 3: for the next day. I have no idea why I'm
Speaker 3: even there, and I'm fearing for my life. I said,
Speaker 3: this is how insane this is. So these federal prosecutors
Speaker 3: put me in a federal prison where my life was
Speaker 3: at jeopardy to intimidate me for making your donation when
Speaker 3: they knew I was innocent. They had all this overwhelming
Speaker 3: evidence that I just gave my money to the schools
Speaker 3: I got receipts for and to real charities. My kids
Speaker 3: didn't cheat, they were highly qualified, We didn't fake anything.
Speaker 3: It turned out that Singer did put some fake information
Speaker 3: of my son's profile. He changed my son's swim time
Speaker 3: by eight percent. Okay, I didn't even know it, but
Speaker 3: he did that. He said, that's a federal fellow me.
Speaker 3: I said what, But I was being put into this
Speaker 3: jeopardy situation where they could have killed me because I
Speaker 3: made a donation to a school and they needed me
Speaker 3: for the venue of Boston. I was the hook for
Speaker 3: the Boston Hook. I was for the Boston trials, and
Speaker 3: they threw me In's this incredibly horrific situation. And that
Speaker 3: was just day one of how this started, and it
Speaker 3: gets worse from there, and the book goes through many
Speaker 3: other examples that are even scarier than that. They could
Speaker 3: do you in this process. So it's just outrageous how
Speaker 3: the prosecutors can abuse the system the way they can,
Speaker 3: how they can weaponize it for their own personal gain.
Speaker 1: I mean, were you, were you officially charged? Were you mirandized?
Speaker 2: Were you?
Speaker 3: I was mirandized by the FBI, but they couldn't tell
Speaker 3: me what I was being charged with except for the crime.
Speaker 3: They could say it was on a services from but
Speaker 3: they had no idea what it was. And so that
Speaker 3: was it. And I was in this federal prison for
Speaker 3: the next day. So then the next day I got
Speaker 3: my one phone call. I called my brother who's a
Speaker 3: civil attorney in Tennessee, and he came down and got
Speaker 3: a criminal lawyer from Texas from Houston, and the next
Speaker 3: day I'm a gonna have to walk in the hallways
Speaker 3: with shackles. I got shackles on my legs, on my ankles,
Speaker 3: I got handcuffs on my hands, and I'm shackled. Go
Speaker 3: to this meeting room from the prison and they come
Speaker 3: into this meeting room through a plexivass window. And that
Speaker 3: was the first time I heard what really happened. They said,
Speaker 3: I said, what's going on here? They must have the
Speaker 3: wrong John Wilson said no, no, no, you're part of this
Speaker 3: big thing with fifty people were all being charged with
Speaker 3: fraud and conspiracy and bribing. I said, what I didn't?
Speaker 3: Said something about Rick Singer. He was bribing coaches, and
Speaker 3: he was test cheating and all this stuff that was
Speaker 3: in this big indictment. I said, I didn't do any
Speaker 3: of that. It must be again a case of mistaken identity.
Speaker 3: And that's the first I even heard. This was about
Speaker 3: Rick Singer and about you know, some charges of cheating
Speaker 3: on tests and faking profiles and bribing coaches. I said,
Speaker 3: I didn't do any of that. So then I got arraigned,
Speaker 3: or not arraigned. I had to make a plea in
Speaker 3: a bond. It was a bond hearing in Texas, and
Speaker 3: this is also where the government gets extremely abusive. So
Speaker 3: there's prosecutors in Houston who are in the courtroom part
Speaker 3: of this jail facility or prison facility, and they're on
Speaker 3: the phone in the back of the room talking to
Speaker 3: the Boston prosecutors. And the judge had already had her
Speaker 3: bail bondsman or whatever, talk to me, and she says,
Speaker 3: she's going to put me on a bond. Let me
Speaker 3: go on a bond, and the prosecutors in Boston, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: we want all cash. We want a million dollars in
Speaker 3: cash before you release it. And the judge that's absurd,
Speaker 3: I said, that's excessive. This guy has never been arrested
Speaker 3: in his life. He's a family man that's been married
Speaker 3: for thirty years, he's got children, he's not a flight risk.
Speaker 3: And they said, we want to appeal your decision. Throw
Speaker 3: them back in prison. They threw me back in prison
Speaker 3: so they could appeal her decision. And she said, I'll
Speaker 3: put them back in but only till the end of
Speaker 3: the day, and then if you don't have new information,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let him out of a bond. So they
Speaker 3: threw me back in just to intimidate me again. They
Speaker 3: knew they had no new information, so they threw me
Speaker 3: back into the prison. And then I get called up
Speaker 3: at the end of the day again and she says,
Speaker 3: do you have any new information? No, says I didn't
Speaker 3: think you would. Why'd you put him back in? That's
Speaker 3: our right, we can appeal it. And then she let
Speaker 3: me go on a bond. So it's just that was
Speaker 3: just the first two days of what they did and
Speaker 3: how dirty they could play, in the extreme tactics they
Speaker 3: could use against you in this kind of process. Right,
Speaker 3: they threw me back into that prison again just because
Speaker 3: they could to intimidate me, right, And it just it
Speaker 3: went from there to get work and worse and worse,
Speaker 3: and they kept piling on charges in this case, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: They knew I was the most person that all the
Speaker 3: facts that proved I was innocent. They charged me with
Speaker 3: three times more charges than anybody else, even more than
Speaker 3: Rick Singer, the ring leader. They charged me in the
Speaker 3: end with nine felony charges. That's more than Sam Bankman free. Wow,
Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty years of prison time for making
Speaker 3: a donation. And they kept threatning to charge They charged
Speaker 3: me four additional times, four sets a superseding charge that
Speaker 3: spread out over a year, and every time they kept saying,
Speaker 3: if you don't play guilty, and now we're going to charge
Speaker 3: with more. And they were all related to the same thing.
Speaker 3: They were like honest services fraud, than bribery, than federal
Speaker 3: programs bribery, but then wire fraud because the money went
Speaker 3: through the wiring system. And they kept doing this over
Speaker 3: and over again. And at the end, I said to
Speaker 3: my lords, they could charge me trying to kill Kennedy
Speaker 3: and being on the grassy hole. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to plead guilty, and so I said, you
Speaker 3: can keep charge Malijuan, I'm not gonna plete guilty. So
Speaker 3: then they finally stopped. But I was facing one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty years of prison time. That's what they can do, dude,
Speaker 3: before to plead guilty.
Speaker 1: Well, and they're sure, and that's exactly why they want
Speaker 1: to bully you, and they they're going to punish you.
Speaker 1: But that's how they weaponize the justice system. They're going
Speaker 1: to punish you for not doing what they want right
Speaker 1: and whether you know whether you're innocent or not, they
Speaker 1: don't care. And I think we've seen so much evidence
Speaker 1: of that especially in the last five six years, that
Speaker 1: it has gotten out of hand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's totally excessive and extreme. And then they could
Speaker 3: do other things like judge shopping. They're able to prop
Speaker 3: a venue shop for Boston. But then within Boston they
Speaker 3: were able to get the right judge. They basically sprinkled
Speaker 3: some low level cases, some test takers, a couple of
Speaker 3: coaches here and there, and they got each judge randomly
Speaker 3: assigned from Boston to one of those cases. And once
Speaker 3: they had to think there were only six judges in
Speaker 3: Boston federal judge at the time. Once they had five
Speaker 3: or the judges sprinkled, they got the judge they wanted,
Speaker 3: they preferred judge, and then they stopped. And then they
Speaker 3: amended the complaint and said, this is one giant conspiracy
Speaker 3: and we're going to put all the parents on this
Speaker 3: one judge that we want. And as soon as they
Speaker 3: judge shopped for that judge, there was a group of
Speaker 3: fifteen law firms that represented all the parents, the major
Speaker 3: law firms in the country said you can't do this,
Speaker 3: this is judge shopping. I think twenty five lawyers signed
Speaker 3: this letter. And the judge said, no, it's fine. And
Speaker 3: he had to. He basically said no, and the magistrate
Speaker 3: judge said no, it's fine. And once they approved this judge,
Speaker 3: who was basically a rubber stamp, half of the defense
Speaker 3: immediately changed their plea from not guilty to guilty within
Speaker 3: a week because they knew this judge wouldn't give them
Speaker 3: a fair trial. And that's what happened throughout our entire
Speaker 3: next two year journey. He ruled against us one hundred
Speaker 3: percent of the time, and our major pretron motions and
Speaker 3: our lawyers, some of the best lawyers in the world,
Speaker 3: and the other lawyers said, we have some good motions here,
Speaker 3: and we should win some of them. We won't win
Speaker 3: them all, but win some of them. We won zero
Speaker 3: points zero percent. The judge ruled against us every single time.
Speaker 3: And one of the judge's own decisions said, didn't say
Speaker 3: I was alleged. They said John Wilson hasmitted fraud and
Speaker 3: bribery in his opinion. He said it declaratively, maybe by mistake,
Speaker 3: but it showed his mindset. He didn't say he's alleged
Speaker 3: to have had one of his opinions said he's committed
Speaker 3: bribery and fraud. He already wrote that he already concluded
Speaker 3: before our trial even happened what we had done. And
Speaker 3: then you know, during the trial, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: he blocked our evidence ninety eight point three percent of
Speaker 3: the time. He just kept blocking every motion that the
Speaker 3: prosecutor's made. So my daughter's perfect act test course not
Speaker 3: allowed in on a trial about college admissions. A perfect
Speaker 3: act test course not allowed in right.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make that.
Speaker 3: Kind of thing right, It doesn't make any sense at all.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons they got overturned. But when
Speaker 3: you're in a trial and they can hand pick a
Speaker 3: judge like that, all you can do is lose at
Speaker 3: trial and go to appeal. The judge is the final say.
Speaker 3: And so if they pick a judge wh's very supportive
Speaker 3: like that, he's the final saying. You've got nothing to do.
Speaker 3: And the judge was saint. Was taken up on appeal
Speaker 3: multiple times, taken up on appeal.
Speaker 1: Which is so lazy. That is intellectually and physically lazy
Speaker 1: of anyone in the judiciary, and it's antithetical to the
Speaker 1: jurisprudence that founded the country because you, according to the judge,
Speaker 1: were guilty and then you had to be proven innocent.
Speaker 1: It's the opposite. In this country, are supposed to be
Speaker 1: supposed to be.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of these that happened at the end
Speaker 3: of the trial I have the transcripts, was just getting crazy.
Speaker 3: The judge is getting so fed up with us trying
Speaker 3: to introduce evidence that proved by innocence. At the end,
Speaker 3: he went to the prospers and said, I assume how
Speaker 3: much more evidence do you have. We said, we got
Speaker 3: another whatever, sixty or seventy pieces. He said, well, I'm
Speaker 3: just going to overrule it all on Mass. He said, what,
Speaker 3: you don't even know what it is. We said, how
Speaker 3: can you do this? He said, well, I know they're
Speaker 3: going to object. I know we're going to just basically
Speaker 3: waste our time. I'm going to just overrule your evidence,
Speaker 3: en Mass. That's the end of the trial. So even
Speaker 3: the stuff we had at the end, we didn't let
Speaker 3: us introduce it. He said, just put it all in
Speaker 3: for the appeals court, and I'm going to overrule it
Speaker 3: all on Mass.
Speaker 1: John, I'm assuming that In the book, and again it's
Speaker 1: Varsity Blues, the scandal within the scandal there. You also
Speaker 1: have an excellent website where people can read the rule
Speaker 1: the lawsuits, and I believe the guy did I see
Speaker 1: a video or was it the lie detector guy that said.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's a polygraph as well. Yes, we did everything
Speaker 3: possible to prove our innocence. Here. The book is available
Speaker 3: now for pre order on Amazon dot com. It's available
Speaker 3: in the twenty second of April. All the proceeds from
Speaker 3: the book are going to nonprofits, going to charity. This
Speaker 3: is not about making money. It's about getting our story
Speaker 3: out there and clearing our name and doing what we
Speaker 3: can to help make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else.
Speaker 1: And do you name names in the book?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are some names in the book, but other
Speaker 3: places you can look at, you know, and determine who
Speaker 3: the people are pretty easily.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: I think the biggest set of issues in the book
Speaker 3: is really trying to share the evidence and share the
Speaker 3: fact so share Our website does that as well. Sure,
Speaker 3: I was working hard to prove by innocence. One of
Speaker 3: the things we did is wanted. I was worried about
Speaker 3: actually dying before I got to clear our names all
Speaker 3: the stress. You know, I'm not a young spring chicken,
Speaker 3: and so I wanted to take a polygraph test and
Speaker 3: we want to do that in a way. It's very credible.
Speaker 3: And people who said to us, the lawyers, well, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of polygraph people out there that'll give you
Speaker 3: an answer that whatever you want. They're not very high
Speaker 3: quality and that's why they're not usually admissible. So I said, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's get the best person out there. So we got
Speaker 3: the former head of the FBI polygraph program. He run
Speaker 3: the polygraph school for the FBI or the whole division,
Speaker 3: and he when he heard about this case, look, I
Speaker 3: also want to bring in the head of the CIA
Speaker 3: polygraph program. This guy ran the school for all the
Speaker 3: federal government, taught all the federal government polygraph experts and
Speaker 3: examiners for a decade. So we had the head of
Speaker 3: the FBI polygraph program and the head of the cif
Speaker 3: CIA polygraph program, and I spent ultimately three full days
Speaker 3: taking polygraph tests, more than they've ever seen anyone take
Speaker 3: before I volunteered to do this. I passed twenty five questions,
Speaker 3: all with flying colors, and we asked every question imaginable
Speaker 3: off this case. Did I know Singer was doing this?
Speaker 3: Did it bribe this? Did my kids cheating on their test? No?
Speaker 3: That I put in a false information. No, was Johnny
Speaker 3: a real water polo player? All these things right, We
Speaker 3: passed every single test, and we gave it to the
Speaker 3: government as we went and filed a suit against Netflix.
Speaker 3: We used it in Netflix as well, and the government
Speaker 3: had it all and at my sentence they said it's
Speaker 3: just all self serving. Well, yes, it's the truth. They
Speaker 3: dismissed it, all self serving, and the judge dismissed it
Speaker 3: as well. So I don't even see that it's self serving. Well,
Speaker 3: it's the truth done by the head of the FBI
Speaker 3: and the head of the CIA. The government actually tests
Speaker 3: their own people fifty thousand times a year, right. They
Speaker 3: believe in polygraphs. When they're administered properly, polygraphs can be
Speaker 3: very powerful tools. And so I had the head of
Speaker 3: the FBI do my polygraph and then have it separately
Speaker 3: quality controlled by the head of the CIA Polygraph Division,
Speaker 3: and so they verified everything, and the government just dismissed
Speaker 3: it all because it didn't fit their narrative. So we
Speaker 3: did everything we could to prove our innocence, and we
Speaker 3: volunteer to take polygraphs as well with them, and it
Speaker 3: just never happened. And they didn't care about the truth.
Speaker 3: It wasn't about the truth to them. It was about
Speaker 3: covering up the false charges and railroading through a trial
Speaker 3: and then railroading you through the appeals process. And I'm
Speaker 3: still fighting to the day against Netflix and USC to
Speaker 3: restore our honor.
Speaker 1: And so the USC lawsuit is regarding the well, I
Speaker 1: would say they fraud against you.
Speaker 3: Yes, they did fraud. USC defrauded us back in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: when we met multiple people and they said that this
Speaker 3: was fine, this is acceptable, this was consistent school policy.
Speaker 3: And then in my trial they said no, we didn't
Speaker 3: do this. This was not a school policy. This was bribe.
Speaker 3: I said, what, And so we're suing them for fraud.
Speaker 3: And then Netflix was also warned. Netflix came out with
Speaker 3: a movie several months before my trial, even about this case,
Speaker 3: and they took all the worst parents who had already
Speaker 3: played guilty, who had really bad facts, people talking on
Speaker 3: the phone about cheating and bribing and taking fake photos,
Speaker 3: and they lucked me in with them. And we thought
Speaker 3: there was a risk of that, so I had my
Speaker 3: lawyers write them a letter before the movie came out
Speaker 3: to warn them and said, look, we gave them a
Speaker 3: five hundred and fifty page warning letter. Right had all
Speaker 3: of our facts. They said, we're totally different than every
Speaker 3: other parent in Varsity Blues, and here's why. So it
Speaker 3: gave him my son's all of his facts, and true
Speaker 3: water polo pictures and all the swim times, my daughter's
Speaker 3: perfect act test scores. All these things were in there,
Speaker 3: and Netflix ignored it all and just put me in
Speaker 3: their movie. And they basically interspersed me in their movie
Speaker 3: multiple times with all these other parents bad acts to
Speaker 3: make me look bad again, guilty by association. And they
Speaker 3: also excerpted certain sound bites to make it sound incriminating. So,
Speaker 3: for example, in one of the conversations they show, I
Speaker 3: say to singer trying to clarify where the money's going.
Speaker 3: I say, so, I don't give the money to the schools.
Speaker 3: I give it to you. He says yes, and they
Speaker 3: play that, and then they play somebody else's sound bite
Speaker 3: where they're talking about bribing a coach at the school,
Speaker 3: and so it makes me sound really bad. What they
Speaker 3: didn't show, what we have in our lawsuit is that
Speaker 3: the very next sentence out of my mind, out of
Speaker 3: my mouth is oh and then you give the money
Speaker 3: to the school. Well that's different than a bribe. But
Speaker 3: they didn't play that sound bite, right, So they just
Speaker 3: selectively at things like that, and they did that over
Speaker 3: and over throughout their movie. And they took a picture
Speaker 3: of a kid standing in the shallow end of the pool,
Speaker 3: and then they show them editing that picture, and they
Speaker 3: show my voice when the guys editing that picture the
Speaker 3: beginning of the movie, implying that my son was standing
Speaker 3: in the shallow into the pool. It wasn't a water
Speaker 3: polo player, right, So they did that kind of thing
Speaker 3: over and over throughout the movie, and so we filed
Speaker 3: a suit against them for defamation, and we actually have
Speaker 3: prevailed so far against usc. We won the very first
Speaker 3: big hurdle, you have to win his emotion to dismiss,
Speaker 3: and we won, and the judge said, no, no, no, John
Speaker 3: Wilson wasn't a fake athlete. He was a real athlete.
Speaker 3: You could argue he was a good athlete or bad.
Speaker 3: He was a real athlete, and the movie depicted him
Speaker 3: as a fake athlete. And my son was John Wilson,
Speaker 3: Johnny Golston. And so we've prevailed so far. Now we're
Speaker 3: in Discovery. But again, these guys USC and Netflix, they
Speaker 3: drag things out. They'll drag it out for five years
Speaker 3: to try to deplete you of resources and willpower to
Speaker 3: continue fighting. Thank god, I've got the primary law firm
Speaker 3: on contingency on both those because they've depleted us. The
Speaker 3: government has forced us to spend. You won't believe how
Speaker 3: much money we had to spend. We had to spend
Speaker 3: over ten million dollars my entire life savings. They gave
Speaker 3: us millions of documents. It costs over three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars just to scan the documents that the
Speaker 3: government gave us so we could put them in a
Speaker 3: readable form. Think about that. To go through five years
Speaker 3: of trial and trial prep and then to go through
Speaker 3: the appeals court process. They just bury you in financial
Speaker 3: costs and in this entire time and not been able
Speaker 3: to have a job. So I've lost my job at
Speaker 3: the peak of my career, had to spend my entire
Speaker 3: life savings fighting this and we're still not out of
Speaker 3: the woods yet. And it's just how devasiting it can be.
Speaker 3: And they weren't counting on that. But I'm a fighter.
Speaker 3: I've been a fighter my whole life, and so they
Speaker 3: were probably underestimating me because everyone else just came. Everyone
Speaker 3: else just caved and pled guilty. Now their facts were worse.
Speaker 3: They had facts where they were talking about on the
Speaker 3: phone bribing or cheating on tests. We didn't do that.
Speaker 3: But most people, even if they're innocent, can't afford to
Speaker 3: fight the government. So even as bad as it's been,
Speaker 3: I'm actually fortunate I had the resources. I've been successful.
Speaker 3: I'm a self made person. I grew up in poverty.
Speaker 3: I grew up with a single mom in the projects,
Speaker 3: public housing projects of Hartford, Connecticut, so I wasn't given anything.
Speaker 3: I picked tobacco for four years from the age of
Speaker 3: twelve to sixteen to help my family straight by. So
Speaker 3: I wasn't born with a silver spoon. I've been born
Speaker 3: to fight for everything I've got, and I've had to
Speaker 3: live and fight for everything I've got, And so I'm
Speaker 3: a fighter, and I'll fight to protect my kids to
Speaker 3: my last breath and my last dollar. And you know
Speaker 3: that's just the way I am. And they didn't count
Speaker 3: on that. So I'm going to continue to fight, even
Speaker 3: though now with this book, I'm sure there's a high
Speaker 3: risk of retaliation. They can continue to come back to
Speaker 3: me for any little minor thing and my taxes or whatever.
Speaker 3: Even the tax charge that remains, the fourteen hundred dollars charge.
Speaker 3: It's absurd, It would never be a federal felony, but
Speaker 3: they try to stick it to you as part of
Speaker 3: this overall process. And so my wife is worried about us,
Speaker 3: you know, facing more retaliation. They can be very vindictive
Speaker 3: this process. Even at my sentencing for this fourteen hundred
Speaker 3: dollars tax charge, they had four government lawyers attend that
Speaker 3: four lawyers a ten sentencing hearing, and they recommended spent
Speaker 3: almost an hour with the judge recommending that because I
Speaker 3: was wealthy, I deserve to be made an example of
Speaker 3: and that I should serve fifteen months in prison for
Speaker 3: this you know, fourteen and twenty five dollars tax mistake. Wow,
Speaker 3: And the judge overruled that. But that's how vindictive they
Speaker 3: can be. It's like really wow.
Speaker 1: So there, I mean, this is government that can print money, right,
Speaker 1: they don't they live off our money. I just I
Speaker 1: think government is just full of looters who use our
Speaker 1: money to bully us in many cases. And this is
Speaker 1: this is a great example of that. And this is ridiculous. This,
Speaker 1: if you are a self made person, you have to
Speaker 1: be punished and so anyone, you know, we and we
Speaker 1: have a general, a sweeping generalization out there that anyone
Speaker 1: with any means didn't earn it, and so we should
Speaker 1: be able to take it away. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: frustrating that government plays on that and then promotes themselves
Speaker 1: as the hero for the little guy and not the
Speaker 1: promoter of an actual producer of society's It was sad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, As I said earlier, I came very humble beginnings,
Speaker 3: picked tobacco for years and years. Education changed my life.
Speaker 3: Education transformed my life, and I wanted to give back
Speaker 3: and I was very successful. I hope that it was successful.
Speaker 3: I ran companies. I was the COO of Staples, I
Speaker 3: was a president of Staples International, of was CEO of Gaping.
Speaker 3: And I was successful and I made money, but I
Speaker 3: made it dual fashion. I worked seventy hour weeks for
Speaker 3: years and years. I've traveled and worked in ninety five countries.
Speaker 3: I worked internationally. So I had a tough life, working
Speaker 3: very very hard, and I earned everything. And I know
Speaker 3: the value of a dollar. I was working for less
Speaker 3: than a dollar an hour picking tobacco, sweating out in
Speaker 3: the hot fields forty hours a week. So I know
Speaker 3: the value dollar. And when I was donating one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars to USC, I knew just what it could
Speaker 3: mean in terms of making a difference. I got a
Speaker 3: scholarship that helped get me out of poverty. So I
Speaker 3: was giving money for more scholarships. And to take that
Speaker 3: and use it and weaponize it against me and to
Speaker 3: say I was pure evil for donating to give a
Speaker 3: tiebreaker boost to my kids who were qualified. By the way,
Speaker 3: our kids were very different. It's one thing to give
Speaker 3: a donation to get an unqualified kid in, which could
Speaker 3: then in turn bump a more qualified child. It's hard
Speaker 3: to have a more qualified kid than someone who got
Speaker 3: a perfect testcoo. And so we were giving a tiebreaker
Speaker 3: boost to highly qualified kids. That's what we were told.
Speaker 3: That's what we're misled by the schools and by Singer
Speaker 3: and by the federal government. Did they set up calls
Speaker 3: with me? So we weren't doing like the other parents
Speaker 3: are doing, is getting unqualified kids in onto a team
Speaker 3: or into a college. We were giving money to help
Speaker 3: those schools and to help our kids get a tiebreaker boost.
Speaker 3: It's something that continues to this day. Most schools out
Speaker 3: there have still favorite programs where if you're a donor,
Speaker 3: you get special if you're a legacy you get special admissions.
Speaker 3: If you're a VIP, a political VIP, if you're able
Speaker 3: to ford full tuition, if for family has high enough
Speaker 3: income to forge full tuition, they can give a boost.
Speaker 3: They give boost to faculty children. There are many categories
Speaker 3: where schools to this day give boosts and admissions. It's
Speaker 3: not illegal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the correct one of ours. To be eligible for
Speaker 1: an academic scholarship or legacy program, one of the boxes
Speaker 1: you had to check was you had to join this
Speaker 1: particular group at x amount. Yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: a donation right for every year. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I don't even think you can argue degree that. I
Speaker 1: think the issue is that is part of the admissions process,
Speaker 1: whether they want to admit it or not. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just crazy.
Speaker 3: The USC at the trial said no, that wasn't and
Speaker 3: that was what was shocking, and that's our basis for
Speaker 3: filing the lawsuit for defrauding us. At my triale. They
Speaker 3: basically said that was a bribe, even though they gave
Speaker 3: me a receipt for it.
Speaker 1: That's that's the kicker, right there, is the receipt. And John,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I could talk to you for another
Speaker 1: four hours and I so appreciate it. But let me
Speaker 1: ask you this as we close, is how your family
Speaker 1: is doing now.
Speaker 3: They're still struggling. You can imagine you imagine if you
Speaker 3: were a teenage girl at sixteen years old, my twins
Speaker 3: and you're being bullied not by a school yard, you know,
Speaker 3: someone holds a grudge, but by the federal prosecutors of
Speaker 3: the United States government and basically telling people that you
Speaker 3: were unqualified. Or my son who was twenty years old
Speaker 3: at the time and have his entire life geared around
Speaker 3: sports and athletics since he was nine years old and
Speaker 3: he had the world record, you know, he's been active
Speaker 3: in sports his whole life, playing at the national and
Speaker 3: national level. Had the federal government saying you're an alleged athlete.
Speaker 3: They called them an alleged athlete, you must say he's
Speaker 3: alleged human being, right right? Absurd. So that's been devastating
Speaker 3: for them and they're still struggling. I think the unfortunate
Speaker 3: thing is the instrument makes their scars both deep and permanent. Sure,
Speaker 3: and so the amount of media covers for this case
Speaker 3: has been horrific, and so we're trying to build more
Speaker 3: counterbalancing media coverage here, but it's hard. No once, just
Speaker 3: like when I was accused in the beginning, it makes
Speaker 3: front page news when they put some false information and
Speaker 3: corrected it, it's page thirty four and a foot right
Speaker 3: seven days later. And so where do you go to
Speaker 3: get your reputation back is a classic question, and that's
Speaker 3: what we're struggling with, and they're struggling with that to
Speaker 3: this day. And it's been more painful than I can
Speaker 3: ever imagine and explain as a father, to see your
Speaker 3: innocent children suffer at the hands of the federal government,
Speaker 3: the way they smeared them, it's just despicable and it's
Speaker 3: devastating because you can't do anything. All I can do
Speaker 3: is try to get the truth out there, to try
Speaker 3: to correct the record put To see the federal government
Speaker 3: attacking my innocent children has been devastating. To watch my
Speaker 3: poor wife for almost seven years now cry yourself to
Speaker 3: sleep just about every night worrying about our children. And
Speaker 3: worrying about their reputations. It's just horrific beyond words. And
Speaker 3: all I can do is rededicate myself to try and
Speaker 3: get the truth out there and help make sure it
Speaker 3: doesn't happen anybody else.
Speaker 1: Yes, one hundred percent. And I think you know that's
Speaker 1: a that's a reciprocal thing. So the more we get
Speaker 1: the truth out, the more people are aware, and we'll
Speaker 1: hope hopefully fight. I mean, I can't imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: we're brought up to we're told to trust government. Now
Speaker 1: I'm I don't trust authority, just that's my nature. I
Speaker 1: think I was born that way. But boy, I mean,
Speaker 1: as time passes, John, it is it's difficult, especially after
Speaker 1: hearing stories like yours, to put faith in and well,
Speaker 1: they're people, they're falling, just like everybody else, right.
Speaker 3: Well, believe or not. I still do trust government, maybe
Speaker 3: talking to you, and I do trust law enforcement. I
Speaker 3: think most of them are pretty good people, hard working,
Speaker 3: dedicated people. I think, like any large organization, there could
Speaker 3: be some bad actors, right, So I don't think everyone
Speaker 3: in government is bad by any means, and I don't
Speaker 3: think everyone in the judicial process or the criminal justices
Speaker 3: are bad. I just think there could be some bad
Speaker 3: actors and they can abuse that power in a way
Speaker 3: that is just shocking and devastating. So I believe still
Speaker 3: in the system, and I'm still fighting the system, but
Speaker 3: I think there are some bad actors that need to
Speaker 3: be rooted out.
Speaker 1: Reined in. Okay, amen, I hear that, all right? John.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for being here today. We
Speaker 1: will We'll push this far and wide. I wish you
Speaker 1: well in God's speed and including your family, and please
Speaker 1: come back anytime.
Speaker 3: Well. Thank you so much again. The books available on
Speaker 3: Amazon dot com. So the Scandal within the.
Speaker 1: Scandal Scandal within the same and that is an excellent website,
Speaker 1: Scandal within the Scandal dot com. Thank you, fantastic, Thanks John.
Speaker 1: What a harrowing story. This is just further proof that
Speaker 1: there are two sides to every story, and whatever we
Speaker 1: see on the news or hear from government or some
Speaker 1: big beer bureaucracy or whatever, we need to check that
Speaker 1: before we make a decision or a judgment. I mean,
Speaker 1: holy cow, And I told John off the air, I'm
Speaker 1: going to repeat it here if nothing else, what a
Speaker 1: blessing he is to his family. He is not backing down.
Speaker 1: He has spent everything and his family and his wife
Speaker 1: understands that Dad's got their back. And that's what a
Speaker 1: man does. He steps out in front of his family
Speaker 1: and says, you're not getting to my family. In this case,
Speaker 1: that was being bullied by federal prosecutors who wanted to
Speaker 1: make a name for themselves. And I know we've all
Speaker 1: we've all known about the college admission scandal. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to encourage you again to go to his website,
Speaker 1: Scandal within the Scandal dot com. And then the book
Speaker 1: is Varsity Blues the Scandal within the Scandal that's available
Speaker 1: again on Amazon, and I would just encourage you to
Speaker 1: prouse that website. It's excellent. You can read the briefs,
Speaker 1: you can read the lawsuits, you can hear the testimony.
Speaker 1: The videos from the polygraphers, the FBI and CIA polygraphers
Speaker 1: very powerful. So again, weigh the evidence. We should do
Speaker 1: that for ourselves, regardless of who is claiming guilt or innocence,
Speaker 1: and so I wish them godspeed. Okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: stop there. I want to thank you all for listening.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to magic Man Joe Strucker. Until next time,
Speaker 1: who will stand at either hand and keep the bridge
Speaker 1: with me. Have a great day,