Indicted Parents in College Cheating Case Fight Back

But some of the indicted parents are sending a clearer message back to the prosecutors. They're prepared for the legal battle ahead. They're trying to get the charges dismissed by taking aim at the heart of the case. Joining me as former federal prosecutor Robert Mints, a partner, McCarter and English Bob explain what was happening behind the scenes before the indictments as the prosecutors tried to rest plea deals

out of the parents. Well, what typically happened in these cases is prosecutors can begin criminal charges in one of

two ways. They can file what's called a criminal complaint, which is something that doesn't go in front of a grand jury but is simply a complaint sworn out by an agent and that can be used to charge individuals, which is what happened here, and then individuals will allow the opportunity to that point to strike a plea deal with the government, and if they don't, then prosecutors take the case to the next step, which they've done here, which is to then return an indictment, which goes in

front of a grand jury, and at that point they could add additional charges and really try to apply even further pressure to those people who have not decided to plead guilty. So, as you said, the prosecutors indicted the parents who didn't plead, added a money laundering charge. Plus according to the New York Times, they notified some of the children of the parents that they could be targets

of the criminal investigation. Does this mean that these parents have lost the chance for a good deal and really they don't really have much choice now but to move forward to trial. No, they were certainly not past the

point of no return. This is really just the government ratting up the pressure on these parents and essentially saying to them that if you decide to play hardball, if you're going to take this case to trial, then we as the government, as the prosecutors, are going to pull out all the stops and we're going to add additional charges against you, and we're also going to consider charging others who may also be legally culpable, which may include

your children. And what they're essentially doing is firing a shot across the bow, letting these parents know that if they continue to fight this battle, that they may be dragging their children into harm's way. Does the deal the parents can get get a little bit worse as they inch toward trial. Well, that is usually the way it works, because prosecutors like to get the best deal out there as soon as possible, so they can get people to plead guilty, and they usually say the longer you wait,

the worse the deal gets. So if you go past indictment and you go past motions, and you take the case to the point where it is ready to go to trial or even at trial, that deal will usually not be nearly as good as the one that they give out early on in the investigation. So lawyers for two of the parents, Gregory and Amy Colburn of Palo Alto, file for a dismissal of the charges let's talk about their arguments against the conspiracy charge that cite a ninety

six Supreme Court case. Yeah, that's a very interesting argument and one that you see raised quite frequently in federal criminal trials, although here they may actually have a basis for this argument. And it's a case that goes back to, as you said, called Kadiakas versus the United States, and it goes to the central issue as to whether or not all these defendants can be charged in a single conspiracy,

or whether or not they're really multiple conspiracies. The defendancy are arguing that while there may have been at least for purposes of charging a conspiracy, but between the parents and the individual who was arranging for the test takers and who was arranging for their students to be admitted as athletes, they had no idea about what was going on with all these other parents, and it is unfair and would prejudice them a trial if they were to be tried along with all of these all of these

other parents who may have been doing different things, none of whom know each other, I know, none of whom were aware that the person they were dealing with was also necessarily dealing dealing with all these other parents. Another lawyer, Martin Weinberg, said the allegations about bribing coaches don't amount to money laundering, and other experts have said that the

money laundering charges maybe a bit of an overreach. What do you think, Well, money laundering is kind of an artificially created crime in the sense that money launder is simply conducting a financial transaction with the proceeds of criminal activity. Here, what the defense is arguing is that these payments as bribes were not proceeds of any kind of and activity

at the time they were made. They don't become proceeds of criminal activity until after the recipient of the bribe receives the money, So they may have a good argument there. What about the argument of I need a separate trial here When you have some parents who are in California, some parents are in Texas, Massachusetts, all over the place,

and there are different schools involved, will they get separate trials? Yeah, that's an argument that again made Almost every time you see a federal criminal case brought, defense lawyers routinely foul that motion. But here there may be some merit to it. You generally do not want your client to be tried along with lots of other people, because at some point jurors may throw up their hands and say, if one is guilty, they all must be guilty. There's something called

prejudicial spillover that defendants try to avoid. And here there's a pretty good argument that there was not one overarching conspiracy,

but actually multiple conspiracies. How one of the advantages that you would get as a defense lawyer and having multiple trials as that means your star witness, Mr Singer, who is the one who arranged for all these bribes and all of these payments for people taking the test, would have to testify over and over and over again, and every time he does that his story might get a little different, and that gives prosecutors an opportunity to have to prep him every time, and to give defense lawyers

the chance to cross examine him over and over again, hoping to find inconsistencies in his testimony. Let's talk about one of the parents who did plead, Actress Felicity Huffman, and she seemed to make all the right moves. She pleaded right away. She's so contrition, she accepted responsibility publicly. Prosecutors planned to ask for a sentence of four to ten months jail time. According to CNN, that's the lower end of the sentencing range. But isn't she a good

candidate for probation. Well, that's certainly something that her defense layers. You're gonna argue, and it will be up to the judge at the end of the day, regardless about the sentencing guidelines show that the judge can hand out probation. And one of the things that that the defense lawyers will argue is that she contrition all the things you just said. She came in right away, acknowledged what she did, has tried to make amends, and has otherwise led a

law abiding life. And maybe up to the judge to decide that no jill at all is appropriate here. Now, as far as the parents who are taking the case to trial, if they are not acquitted, if they're found guilty of the charges, what will their sentences look like in comparison? In other words, will they have a heavier sentence because they decided to go to trial. Well, that

is usually the case. Although everybody has a constitutional right to a trial, and everybody has a right to be presumed innocent the innocent, the reality is that if you go to trial, you almost invariably end up with a larger sentence. If in fact you're convicted, the proscures will throw other charges that you They'll bring in other evidence, and you don't get points for accepting responsibility for acknowledging what you had done was wrong if you push the

case to trial. So usually you will see defendants get longer sentences if they decide to take the case to trial and put the government to its proofs. Well, the mighty prosecution, but in this case, at least some of the defense attorneys are very very good and the parents have enough wherewithal to fight the cases. Thanks so much, Bob. That's Robert Mint's a partner McCarter in English, former federal prosecutor.

Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg