A Massachusetts father embroiled in the “Varsity Blues” scandal filed a lawsuit against the University of Southern California on Friday, seeking the return of a $100,000 donation he made toward his son’s admission, along with $75 million in damages for what he says was fraud and misleading the university.
John Wilson, a former Gap and Staples executive, was convicted in 2021 of conspiracy, fraud and bribery in a college admissions scheme. An appeals court dismissed the charges last year — prosecutors failed to prove a “common conspiracy” with corrupt college counselor Rick Singer — and Wilson has since launched 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 the scandalous film and what he describes as unfair media harassment that has caused significant damage to his life savings.
“I think it’s important for us to try to set the record straight and do everything I can to restore my family’s reputation,” Wilson said in an interview Friday.
Wilson hired Singer in 2010 to tutor her son, Johnny, and then advise him on college admissions. The teenager was accepted to USC as a water polo player in 2014 after Singer advised the family to donate $100,000 to the athletic department.
Federal prosecutors characterized the donation as an illegal bribe to USC. In her lawsuit, Wilson says she confirmed Singer’s instructions to donate to the university with two employees (the head water polo coach and the athletic director), who said the gift would help her son’s admission and “would conform to accepted school policy.” “And it was certainly not illegal or unlawful.”
After federal prosecutors charged Singer and 33 parents in 2019, USC said it was the victim of a scheme that violated the university’s policy of accepting donations to facilitate admissions.
Wilson’s lawsuit called USC’s stance “nothing short of reprehensible,” as she said university officials had previously told her, adding that it had become a criminal case against her. The lawsuit criticized USC’s decision to withhold Wilson’s donation as a “serious double standard and a gross abuse of the donor’s trust.”
In a statement, USC said: “This claim, which took place almost 10 years ago, has no legal standing.”
The statement added that following Varsity Blues, “USC implemented a number of significant changes to prevent abuse of the athletic admissions process,” including multiple layers of oversight.
The singer was sentenced last year to 3.5 years in prison. Some of his high-profile clients, including actors Felicity Huffman and Laurie Loughlin and Loughlin’s husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, have worked for five months or less.
A jury convicted Wilson of filing a false tax return, bribery and several other fraud-related charges, but his defense team appealed, arguing that the sites are not considered property for mail and wire fraud. The appeals court agreed and threw out everything except the tax write-off. After prosecutors declined to retry Wilson, a judge sentenced him to a year of probation, including six months of house arrest, for filing a false tax return.
Wilson said the $75 million in damages he is seeking is based on his legal fees ($10 million) and his lost income, which he estimated at $4.5 million a year for six years.
“We took those numbers and doubled them for pain and suffering,” Wilson said.
