Yes for the 3-0-5! The only acquittal from the Varsity Blues case... this is why more cases need to go to trial. Almost every single one of the VB cases pleaded out. People were too afraid of the trial tax. But there's no tax for an acquittal! Congrats to Roy, Howard, Maria, and Jackie.
From Law360:
A Boston federal jury on Wednesday acquitted a Massachusetts businessman on charges he bribed his daughter's way into Georgetown University through illicit payments to the elite school's tennis coach, upending the government's clean record of convictions in the "Varsity Blues" investigation.
Amin Khoury was found not guilty of participating in a mail fraud conspiracy and bribery scheme for paying $180,000 to former Georgetown coach Gordon Ernst through a middleman, who also received $20,000. Prosecutors said that in exchange, Ernst marked Khoury's daughter, Katherine Khoury, as a recruit to the elite Division I school.
Khoury embraced his legal team after the jury and judge left the room.
The weeklong trial featured evidence that Khoury attended a Memorial Day weekend reunion at Brown University, resulting in an agreement that he would pay Ernst for the recruiting slot.
The alleged middleman in the scheme, Tim Donovan, testified that he met up on Cape Cod with Khoury, who gave him a paper bag filled with $180,000 in crisp bills.
Khoury's defense attorney, Roy Black of Black Srebnick PA, hammered Donovan, who testified under an immunity deal with prosecutors, suggesting he was only saying what the government wanted him to say in order to dodge liability for allegedly not paying taxes on cash fees he took for helping high school tennis players get recruited into colleges.
"It's made up by Tim Donovan as part of his scheme to get immunity," Black said during closing arguments. "Katherine Khoury got into school on her own with the help of her father's best friend from Brown as it was disclosed to the school."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen Kearney, at closing, leaned into the image — offered by Donovan — of the paper shopping bag filled with $180,000 in cash that Khoury allegedly slid across a table to him.
"Brown paper shopping bag of cash," she told the jury Tuesday. "It's not some imaginary evidence the defense is asking you to conjure. It's the actual evidence in front of you. This case is not complicated. The defense had thrown a lot at you to distract you from the simple fact they cannot dispute."
