As'VarsityBlues'WindsDown,AttysRecallAWildBeginning
By Chris Villani
Law360 (September 26, 2023, 11:16 AM EDT) -- The "Varsity Blues" college admissions case is not making the same headlines in the fall of 2023 as it did in the spring of 2019, when Hollywood stars and industry bigwigs were swept up in the high-profile prosecution accusing wealthy parents of bribing their children's ways into college.
This is Part 1 of a threepart retrospective on the "Varsity Blues" case. Read Part 2 and Part 3.
Within a few weeks of the case being unveiled, hundreds of people descended on the Boston federal courthouse to see the likes of Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman make their court debuts.
The day the case burst into the public consciousness, Tuesday, March 12, 2019, is one that those involved remember well. "Varsity Blues" ringleader William "Rick" Singer pled guilty, as did Stanford sailing coach John Vandemoer. It was the beginning of sprawling case, and, when the dust settled, 50 people would plead guilty
Two parents and a coach were convicted at trial, only to see those guilty findings wiped away by judges, and a third parent was cleared by a jury.
Attorneys and others shared their recollections of that day with Law360.
Eric Rosen, lead "Varsity Blues" prosecutor who now works at his own firm, Dynamis LLP.
"The day began like five days earlier. We were wrapping up this massive criminal complaint that was being edited, refined, checked and double-checked. I probably slept two hours that Saturday night and another two hours on Sunday."
Andrew Lelling, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
"We had pushed off the takedown date a few times because they wanted to collect more evidence and, as time went on, we were worried it was going to leak. We were on pins and needles to see whether word of this was going to leak out.
"We had gotten press calls from reporters in LA asking to confirm rumors they were hearing about the impending arrests of parents."
Rosen
"The day of the takedown, I remember I arrived at the FBI in Chelsea [Massachusetts] at like 4:30 in the morning. There was a big board with all of the defendants who had arrest warrants, and it would show the progress throughout the morning.
I remember speaking with my counterpart out in LA who thought this would be like a nothing case and was puzzled as to why there was such secrecy surrounding it. By that point, the sun was breaking, so I went back to the U.S. attorney's office at 9:30 or so for the press conference. We had been up for about 7 hours at that point."
Lelling
"The big issue with the takedown was that we needed smooth and nationwide coordination among the prosecutors and among all the FBI offices, and that's always really hard to do. There must have been well over 200 agents nationwide fanning out to make these arrests all at the same time.
"And then came the media requests. We got over 500 press calls in the first few days."
"As soon as we were aware of the cases, we knew that handling them would require careful planning and coordination to manage media requests efficiently. The District of
Carolyn Meckbach, Public Information Specialist handling media relations and public outreach for the federal courthouse.
Massachusetts has a rich history of dealing with high-profile cases, including the Boston Marathon bombing trial, Whitey Bulger's trial, the Harvard admissions case, and others.
"I was with John and his dad that morning. We walked over to the courthouse, and he was being interviewed by probation and my phone started blowing up. I was trying to read my phone as he was being interviewed.
"John went to get coffee with his dad which, in hindsight, was maybe not the best idea. Outside the courthouse, it was pandemonium. There were reporters everywhere."
Rosen
"When the press conference happened, I was up on stage. My phone was in my breast pocket of my suit. I didn't know what was going on, but my phone was vibrating the whole time. I stepped offstage and I had 20 missed calls, all of these texts saying 'I just saw you on CNN, great work.'
I was seeing breaking news alerts and I thought 'wow, this is much, much bigger than I thought, people are taking it seriously.' It wasn't a joke."
Aaron Katz, former Ropes & Gray LLP attorney who represented a parent in "Varsity Blues" and was on trial that day in a case involving five Insys Therapeutics Inc. executives accused of bribing doctors to prescribe opioids.
"When we heard about the sweep, we were sitting in [U.S. District Judge] Allison Burroughs' courtroom trying what we considered to be a real criminal case. This was one where the government is saying 'there is real harm here.' The college case seemed like sort of a joke.
"I remember saying to one of the Insys prosecutors, 'this is what the Boston office is doing? How do you feel about your case being one-upped by some kids who got into college when they shouldn't have?'"
Robert Fisher of Nixon Peabody LLP, attorney for Vandemoer.
"My strongest recollection was that the FBI had named this 'Operation Varsity Blues,' a name I had never heard before.
"The FBI Special Agent-in-Charge gets up there, and he says 'this is the culmination of Operation Varsity Blues.' I am standing there thinking 'that is the dumbest name I have ever heard in my life.' We fought it for like three days, and it was clear that I had lost."
David Schumacher of Hooper Lundy & Bookman PC, retained that day by two parents charged in the case, Gregory and Amy Colburn.
It was an absolutely insane day, a day that white collar practitioners around here will probably never forget. The phone was ringing off the hook. It was the extraordinarily rare circumstance where there were not enough Boston white collar defenders to go around.
Dr. Colburn called [Schumacher's partner] Patric Hooper and said he was arrested and needed a defense lawyer. Pat said, 'we have one of those now.' We talked to him and got the case."
Meckbach
"There was a jump in daily press credentialing requests, with batches of requests coming in from a single outlet. Most inquiries were about how to cover cases in our district. 'How can I bring in electronics? How do I get a seat in the main courtroom? Can I record by video in federal court?'
It was unique in that there was an increase in questions coming from reporters working the celebrity beat. They ranged from procedural questions to, 'Could you please describe what everyone in the courtroom was wearing, in detail?'"
Fisher
"We thought it was really one coach from a school who had an issue with Singer. We definitely didn't understand the scope or the gravity of the case. By the time of John's plea, I started to understand. I hadn't expected it to be so broad and involve all of those people.
"The courtroom was totally packed. We went in and that was the first time I saw Rick Singer."
Katz
"We weren't surprised this became the new case de jour that everyone was really interested in. But it was almost amazing to us that this is what people focused on when we had the opioid case of the century playing out in the courthouse right now.
"People like seeing wealthy people get their comeuppance and here you had 50 people getting taken down notches."
Rosen
"There was a half an hour of a brief lull, and then the phone started ringing with defense counsel, and it really never stopped, it went on, and on, and on. Someone would make contact, saying they are representing someone, and an hour later there would be another person saying they represented a different defendant."
Schumacher
"There were calls and emails flying around, trying to understand these charges. The defendants were elsewhere and had their initial appearances elsewhere, so there was the matter of trying to coordinate with counsel in California. There were frantic calls with agents and prosecutors.
"It was a dizzying day. It's still a bit of a blur, looking back on it."
--Editing by Alyssa Miller.
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