A matter of honor
By: Conner Drigotas
John and Johnny
John Wilson is proud of his son’s accomplishments, and there is a lot to be proud of.
A gifted swimmer, Johnny Wilson became the youngest person to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco at age nine. His swimming career soon expanded into water polo where he started on the 2012 Stanford club team and won first place in the National Junior Olympics, Classic Division. He was also selected for the US Olympic Development Program – twice. On top of that, he graduated high school with a 3.8 weighted GPA and scored in the 93rd percentile on the ACT.
John had a big smile on his face as he talked about Johnny in an interview with Respect America: “My son was gifted. His swim time in high school was better than Johnny Weissmuller’s gold medal time in the Olympics. He was great in the water, and he worked hard. He studied hard, too, and volunteered, and had jobs. He worked his tail off. We never even dreamed of cheating on anything. He earned everything.”
So, in 2019, when he was arrested by FBI agents while getting off a plane in Houston, John Wilson, a proud dad and rags-to-riches success story, thought it was a case of mistaken identity.
Agents told John he was under arrest for “honest services fraud,” a phrase neither he nor the arresting FBI agents could define at the time, and put in federal prison where the nature of his charges was finally made clear. The Wilson family had been swept up in what would become known as the Varsity Blues Scandal. Despite Johnny’s exceptional athletic and academic record, Wilson stood accused of bribery, conspiracy, and fraud via donations to get their kids into the University of Southern California, Harvard, and Stanford universities.
“Perhaps the most frightening part of this story is the fact that the [prosecutors representing the] government had overwhelming evidence from day one that I was innocent the entire time.” John says, “What they didn’t count on was me fighting back, and there was no way in hell I would ever confess to crimes I didn’t commit.”
Home Court Advantage
The past five years since John’s arrest have not been easy for the Wilson family, in large part because of their unique role in getting a favorable venue for prosecutors. John was the only Massachusetts resident included in the Varsity Blues sweep-up, so, John says, “the Boston prosecutors knew there would be media attention for this high profile case and they wanted that for their own careers. After they falsely charged me, they tacked on 180 years of potential prison time, four times more than anyone else, all to try to get me to plead guilty.”
Quote from Verrill attorney David G. Lazarus: https://www.law360.com/articles/1510869
John alleges Boston prosecutors “used me for venue” and that this is a practice that has spanned three cycles of leadership in the Boston Attorney General’s office. He says the prosecutors were “ruthless in terms of the day-to-day things” and John expressed frustration about some of the tactics during the proceedings, including sharing non-case-related emails with the legal community, which included swimsuit-clad pictures of his then teenage daughters from a family vacation.
“It’s not only perverted, it’s creepy.” John says, “All that just to put pressure on us?”
Despite the pressure, however, John refused to take a plea deal, and that alone is no small feat.
Plea bargaining accounts for almost 98 percent of federal convictions and 95 percent of state convictions in the United States, and there is a question of whether this runs afoul of the 6th Amendment, which guarantees the right to a speedy and public trial.
In John’s case, he says he had the three things you need to overcome this kind of pressure: “I had the financial resources, the support group around me, my friends and family, and the grit from my upbringing. I’m a fighter.”
John says his fortunate circumstances made the difference but takes issue with the practice of plea bargain pressure generally. Most people can’t afford to spend the $10 million he did to mount a legal defense, so many give government prosecutors easy “wins” by taking a plea.
When plea bargain pressure tactics failed, John says that prosecutors had to go with their backup plan. “When they realized it would have to go to trial, they were able to handpick a judge.”
“Judge shopping,” like plea bargaining, is a relatively common practice that makes headlines, such as in the Varsity Blues saga, with accusations coming from both parents and prosecutors. In John’s situation, the various Varsity Blues cases were spread across a number of judges, but prosecutors were then able to amend the docket to consolidate the cases under a single conspiracy, landing the case in front of “their preferred, highly supportive judge.”
This result, John argues, was an unfair trial. “That judge just overruled all of my evidence during the trial. It was insane. My lawyers had never seen anything like that. When a prosecutor gets to pick their own judge, like they did here, they basically have no check and balance. They have absolute power. So they can run off the rails.”
The case centered on academic and athletic ability, but “the prosecutors improperly blocked my daughters’ actual ACT scores, my son’s world record, and his certified swim times from being shown to the jury,” John says. “The judge ruled in [prosecutors] favor 98.3% of the time. They blocked my evidence 660 times in a three-week trial.”
The chicanery that took place throughout John Wilson’s legal proceedings inspired not only a Wall Street Journal op-ed from the renowned attorney and co-Founder of FIRE Harvey Silverglate but also an amicus (friend of the court) brief cosigned by eleven former United States Attorneys that read, in part: “JOHN WILSON DID NOT RECEIVE A FAIR TRIAL.”
Picking up the pieces
All but one of his convictions were overturned by the Appeals Court, leaving just “a residual tax conviction for deducting my donations to USC in 2014,” John says, “even though I overpaid my taxes that year by more than the disputed donation amount, which ultimately resulted in a fine and probation.”
The impact continues to this day.
“It’s been hell, especially for my kids. I want to correct the record for my children. I want the world to know my children were innocent, they were highly qualified on their own merit, and I will spend every last breath defending that. As a father, I want to stand up for their honor, their reputations, and their futures. What was done to me and my family should never happen to anyone.”
He wants to see changes to how high-profile cases are reviewed (independently and with a higher degree of scrutiny) but believes there is a deeper rot as the result of perverse incentives for prosecutors: “Instead of seeking the truth—whether it led them to my guilt or innocence—and doing the honorable thing at each step in this process, what the prosecutors did was hide or block any exculpatory evidence from both the trial and the public.”
