Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every day we bring you insight and analysis into the most important legal news of the day. You can find more episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. The moral outrage over wealthy parents getting their kids into college with bribes, fixed s a T scores, and fake athletic feats continues unabated, more than a week after the college admission scandal was revealed.
But will that translate into those wealthy parents spending any time in jail? Joining me to answer that question and more is former federal public defender James Cohen, professor at Fordham Law School. So, Jim, is there even a chance that one of these parents will serve time in prison? Oh? Absolutely, indeed, I would rate the odd jecs. There's a bigger chance that they will than that they won't. Really, why do you say that, because mostly let'sperts are saying or ageous offense.
It's the wealthy helping the wealthy, with no regard or insight into the fact that that's what they're doing. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of these parents are that. None of these parents struggled over whether to do it. And I'm sure there are some people out there that struggled and decided not to, but that's not the group we're talking about. We're talking about the
group that struggled and decided to do it. Isn't this the type of crime though that is usually plea bargained down. The answer is no. I think that the prosecutors rightfully want to send a message, as they say, they want general deterrence. They want the educational marketplace, so to speak, to be perceived as clean and honest by the public. I'm not saying there won't be any deals, but I am saying that the deals are not going to be fantastic. Uh,
You're not going to get great deals out of this conduct. So, at a court appearance for one of the parents, Greg Abbott, the CEO of International Dispensing, who is now on leave, when asked how much time he could face by the judge, the prosecutor told the judge twelve to twenty four months, and Abbot's lawyer told the judge zero to six months. You know, defense lawyers want to make sure that their client believes that they the defense lawyer, are pitching it downward.
I try to find out quickly what the guidelines were, could not find out. They probably are somewhere in the range for both of those that is twelve to twenty four and whatever the other one was. But a judge is not bound by those guidelines. A judge is going to say this is absolutely disgraceful. And I won't say throw the book at these people in the sentence. The guidelines, let's say, are two years. I'm not saying they're going to get five years, but I don't think they discount
off the guideline. Sentence is going to be very great at all. Many of these parents have hired high power attorneys in big law firms, and if they're going that route, aren't those attorneys going to try to bargain down to let's say, community service, a hefty fine and just say, you know, if you're not going to do that, Mr prosecutor, we're going to trial. And the prosecutors are gonna say, bring it on. The prosecutors are going to say, great,
I need more trial experience, let's do it. These cases are not triable for the most part. I don't know all the details, but these cases are not what we call triable from the defense attorney's perspective. You have some people saying, for example, play right. David Mammott wrote a letter posted last week in The Hollywood Reporter and support of Felicity Huffman and saying, you know, it's just being a parent defense. You know it wasn't for me, it
was from my kid. Yeah, the judge is gonna say, did not you of all people should have known better? You are people of privilege to the nth degree, and you, of all people should know better. Suppose this does go to trial. Let's say there is up defense attorney who says, all right, we're gonna go to trial if you're not going to give us a deal. A deal, right, what are the likely defenses at a trial? That's a good question.
I think it will depend on the case. In some of these cases with the tape recordings may not be as clear as they are in others, and that would be a defense where you never heard the parents say I want to do it because I want to corrupt the educational system. Right. I mean, that's a silly example, but you know there is going to be some wiggle room in some of these cases just because. But that wiggle room in general is not going to be enough
to exonerate the parents who participated in this. And I suppose that one of the defenses will be if the mastermind testifies that he offered it to me. I wasn't looking for this kind of deal. I didn't want to do this. But he's the bad guy, right, and the prosector is going to say, you know, that's exactly right. I think it's Skinner is his name. Skinner is a bad guy, but so is the defendant on trial. What's
going on right now? The parents have now hired these attorneys there up to parents are lawyering up, as we say on TV, parents are lawyering up, and they're going to begin some sort of discussions with the prosecutor, at least on the issue of bail. I don't think bail will be an issue for any of these parents, but they're gonna probably have to turn over their passports, which is a bit of an indignity. And then they're going
to set the case for trial. They'll set the case for motions, and maybe one or more the lawyers will think of some clever grounds for motions. But then at some point they're going to arrive in Boston for trial, or they're going to arrive somewhere to plead guilty. Because it's a practical matter, they cannot ignore the benefits of the reduction in the sentencing guidelines for acceptance of responsibility.
When you're dealing with relatively small amounts of time, which we are here, then the two or the three points off, depending on what the guideline started at, is going to be important. None of the kids who are charged are charged, and some of them appeared from the allegations of the prosecutors, some of them appeared to be participants in it. Some of them didn't know at all. Do you think that down the road they'll be charged as well. I think
that's a possibility. I think it really will depend ultimately on the prosecutor's reassessment of the children's involvement versus the parents involvement. It wouldn't surprise me at all that as the prosecutor gets on top of each of these cases, looking at each of them through the new lens, that they will say, you know, this child really was participating. And by the way, they're not so much children, right.
How old are these young people. They're eighteen nineteen. They're far from adults in any meaningful way, but they're also they're not children in any meaningful either. All Right, I'm sure the parentsecutor could say, I'm going to give you a break because obviously you weren't raised very well. Oh. I'm sure they're glad that you're not the judge in these cases. Thank you so much, Jim. That's James Cohen, professor at Fordham Law School. Thanks for listening to the
Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg