Federal prosecutors accused Robert Zangrillo, a Miami developer, of a criminal and expensive effort to secure his daughter’s entry into the USC.
In 2017, Zangrillo hired associates from Newport Beach consultant Rick Singer to secretly complete his daughter’s high school classes. Later, Zangrillo paid others to complete classes at his daughter’s community college. And in order for his daughter to be accepted at USC as a transfer student, prosecutors claimed, he opted for Singer’s notorious “side door”, paying $ 250,000 as part of a scheme to falsely escalate his daughter as a team recruit.
A trial was scheduled for later this year in Boston on charges related to fraud, bribery and money laundering.
Still, in the closing hours of his presidency on Wednesday, Donald Trump reached out a merciful hand to the wealthy Florida investor and issued a “total forgiveness” that seemed to end the charge.
The precipitation was fast.
In a statement, the US attorney in Massachusetts, Andrew E. Lelling, criticized Zangrillo for “having his own daughter participate in a scheme to lie to the USC” and said that forgiveness demonstrated “precisely why Operation Varsity Blues was necessary first of all.”
The White House said the pardon was supported by a number of entrepreneurs, including Los Angeles developer Geoff Palmer, but also investor Thomas J. Barrack, a former USC student and university curator, which has shocked the campus and beyond.
Barrack, a longtime friend of Trump who also chaired his inauguration committee, denied having played any role.
“Sir. Barrack had nothing to do with Zangrillo’s forgiveness,” said a spokesman in a statement. “He never intervened and never argued with anyone about it. All reports to the contrary are patently false.”
A spokeswoman for USC declined to comment on the pardon, although the university was considered a victim of the alleged fraud.
“I hope it is true that a USC trustee, with a fiduciary duty to the university, played no role in securing forgiveness for a wrongdoer whose actions have so badly damaged USC’s reputation,” said Ariela Gross, law professor and president USC teachers, a group of hundreds of teachers.
A person familiar with Barrack, who was not allowed to comment publicly, told The Times that Zangrillo had not met with the prominent administrator, but had tried several ways to get his help with the college admission case. Zangrillo was blocked at every turn, the person said.
There seemed to be other questionable elements in the announcement of forgiveness. The White House said Amber Zangrillo “currently earns” an average of 3.9 points at USC, but a university spokesman confirmed to The Times that she was not enrolled there.
And Sean Parker, the technology billionaire and founder of Napster, denied having played any role in Zangrillo’s case, despite the White House including him among supporters.
“Sean doesn’t know [Zangrillo] and made no apology on his behalf, ”said Parker’s spokesman.
When prosecutors revealed the college admission case in 2019, USC was the epicenter of the bribery and fraud scheme, with an administrator, a coach, a teacher and more than a dozen parents facing charges.
Zangrillo’s case stood out. He was the only defendant accused of paying third parties to complete his daughter’s high school and college. In court cases, prosecutors detailed the involvement of father and daughter in Singer’s scheme.
In a conversation intercepted by investigators, Singer told Robert Zangrillo and his daughter that she would go through the USC admission process as an athletic recruit. After she was accepted, Zangrillo sent $ 50,000 to the USC athletics department, according to Singer’s instructions, and later paid $ 200,000 to Singer, prosecutors said.
Donna Heinel, a former manager of the USC athletics department that prosecutors say is part of Singer’s scheme, did not classify Zangrillo as a recruit, but as a “VIP”, although she was not an elite athlete. Prosecutors argued that although Amber Zangrillo was admitted as a VIP, rather than a recruited athlete, her father understood that she was being fraudulently packaged for the USC as a talented rower.
“Sir. Zangrillo encouraged, helped, incited and paid for this fraud on multiple and multiple occasions,” said Eric Rosen, a federal prosecutor, at a 2019 hearing.
From the beginning, Zangrillo undertook an exclusively aggressive campaign for his defense and sought to expose USC’s admission practices. His lawyers fought for a series of internal documents about USC admissions and the role of philanthropy in raising candidates.
Zangrillo’s legal team also wanted the USC to deliver a particularly sensitive set of information: the names of prominent people who fought for certain candidates.
The USC and its Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher lawyers fought hard not to reveal those names, but a judge ordered the school to hand over the documents to Zangrillo’s lawyers without essays, names and everything.
Zangrillo’s pardon may prevent this information and other aspects of USC’s confessions from being conveyed during a jury trial.
Behind Zangrillo’s combative legal strategy was a defense that depended on the theory that the USC routinely admitted children of donors and other prominent individuals as special candidates or “VIPs”.
“The notion that Robert Zangrillo’s $ 50,000 check to the USC, made after his daughter’s admission, was a ‘bribe’ is legally wrong – there was no corruption agreement between Mr. Zangrillo and the USC that brought this a relatively common gift for a university orbiting federal criminal law, ”wrote its lawyers in a 2019 lawsuit.
“It was an indistinguishable donation from the large number of other donations from parents of students made to USC and, apparently, to other universities and colleges across the country,” added the lawyers.
While others embroiled in the college admission scandal spent time in prison or lost their jobs, Zangrillo remained active in business.
He is the founder and CEO of Dragon Global, an investment company, and at the end of last year, his lawyers told a judge that he was involved in finding potential investors and exploring business opportunities in Mexico.
Zangrillo asked for permission to travel to Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum for 10 days of business meetings last November. A judge approved the trip.
Times staff writer Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.