A Massachusetts father implicated in the “Varsity Blues” scandal filed a lawsuit Friday against the University of Southern California, seeking return of a $100,000 donation he made in connection with his son’s admission, along with $75 million in damages for what he claims was fraud and deception by the university.
John Wilson, a former Gap and Staples executive, was convicted in 2021 of conspiracy, fraud and bribery in connection with a college admissions scheme. An appeals court dismissed those charges last year, ruling that prosecutors had failed to prove a “pervasive conspiracy” with corrupt college counselor Rick Singer, and Wilson has since embarked on a campaign to clear his family’s name.
In addition to the lawsuit against USC in Los Angeles Superior Court, the 65-year-old has filed a defamation suit against Netflix over a film about the scandal and has waged a media campaign over what he describes as an unfair prosecution that cost him his life savings.
“I think it's important that we try to set the record straight and do everything we can to help rebuild my family's reputation,” Wilson said in an interview Friday.
Wilson hired Singer in 2010 to tutor his son, Johnny, and later advise him on college admissions. The teenager was admitted to USC as a water polo recruit in 2014 after Singer advised the family to donate $100,000 to the athletic department.
Federal prosecutors characterized that donation as an illegal bribe to USC. In her lawsuit, Wilson says she confirmed Singer’s instruction to donate to the university with two employees — the head water polo coach and an athletics department administrator — who said the gift would facilitate her son’s admission and was “in accordance with accepted school policies and was certainly not illegal or unlawful.”
After federal prosecutors charged Singer and 33 parents in 2019, USC said it had been a victim of the scheme and that it was a violation of university policy to accept donations to facilitate admissions.
Wilson’s lawsuit called USC’s stance “nothing short of reprehensible” in light of what he says university employees previously told him and claimed that fueled the criminal case against him. The lawsuit criticized USC’s decision to keep Wilson’s donation as “a deeply troubling double standard and a gross abuse of donor trust.”
In a statement, USC said: “This lawsuit, which brings to light events that occurred 10 years ago, has no legal merit.”
The statement added that in the wake of Varsity Blues, “USC made a number of significant changes to prevent abuse of the athletic admissions process,” including multiple levels of oversight.
Last year, Singer, the mastermind behind the crime, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Some of his most prominent clients, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and Loughlin's husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, served sentences of five months or less.
A jury convicted Wilson of filing a false tax return, bribery and several fraud-related charges, but his defense team appealed, arguing that admissions seats were not considered property for purposes of mail and wire fraud. An appeals court agreed and dismissed all charges except the tax charge. After prosecutors declined to retry Wilson, a judge sentenced him to one year of probation, including six months of house arrest, for filing the false tax return.
Wilson said the $75 million in damages he is seeking is based on his legal fees ($10 million) and lost income, which he estimated at $4.5 million per year for six years.
“We took those numbers and basically doubled them for pain and suffering,” Wilson said.
