Two parents’ convictions relating to the college admissions scandal were thrown out by a U.S. federal appeals court on Wednesday. The fraud convictions of former casino executive Gamal Aziz and private equity investor John Wilson—the first defendants tried in relation to “Operation Varsity Blues”—were overturned by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. The admissions scandal, which broke in 2019, ultimately led to more than 50 guilty peas from rich parents, including the actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, who admitted to paying large sums of cash to William “Rick” Singer, who offered them a method of getting their kids into elite colleges through a “side door” scheme. Aziz had been accused of paying $300,000 to get his daughter into the University of Southern California while prosecutors alleged Wilson paid $1.5 million to send his daughters to Harvard and Stanford. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch said in her decision to overturn their mail and wire fraud convictions that the original judge made an error in telling jurors that admissions slots constituted property. All of Aziz’s convictions were scrubbed while all but one conviction of filing a false tax return were thrown out for Wilson.
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