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Jovan Vavic, a renowned water polo coach at USC for 25 years, was convicted by a jury in April of soliciting and accepting more than $220,000 in bribes in exchange for helping secure admissions for students. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit honest services, mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs, bribery and honest services fraud.
Prosecutors alleged he created a “side door” for students to become athletic recruits by designating them as water polo recruits regardless of whether they played the sport. They also alleged he used fake athletic resumes in the process.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani granted Vavic’s request for a new trial, but denied his request for a judgment of acquittal.
“By granting a new trial, the court acknowledges what we have long argued — the government’s case is built on knowingly false statements by admitted fraudster Rick Singer,” defense attorney Stephen Larson said in an emailed statement. “As we have demonstrated, and the court now confirms, there is no evidence that Coach Vavic ever used donations to the USC water polo program for his own benefit.”
U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins said a conviction was the right decision.
“We are very disappointed by this verdict, which we believe is not grounded in fact or law. The jury convicted Mr. Vavic on every count and we believe they got it right,” the prosecutor said. “At this point we are reviewing all of our options.”
Vavic’s lawyers argued in court that evidence presented at trial was “insufficient” as it related to the conspiracies he faced and that it “resulted in harmful spillover” to the Honest Services mail and phone scams .
The defense team also argued that a prosecutor made false statements during closing arguments, including when the prosecutor said Vavic agreed to recruit a student for $100,000.
“The government’s argument that he agreed to recruit a student for money for his water polo program was supported by this evidence. However, the claim that the agreement was for $100,000 was not supported by any evidence,” Talwani said in his decision.
The misinformation alone was not enough to warrant a new trial, Talwani wrote, but the situation was exacerbated by the fact that prosecutors introduced statements from the scheme’s mastermind, Rick Singer, that were false.
“The government presumably introduced Singer’s statements to show how Singer solicited parents as part of the scheme,” Talwani wrote. “However, where the government made no disclaimer or acknowledgment to the jury that it did not offer Singer’s statements about Vavic for their truth, there is a substantial risk that the jury reached a decision based on false evidence.”
Singer, prosecutors have said, ran two general scams: First, cheating on standardized tests for students whose parents paid; and second, using Singer’s connections with college sports coaches and using bribes to get the children of paying parents into school with fake athletic credentials.
Vavic, a 15-time national coach of the year, was sacked in March 2019 after allegations of his involvement in the scam were made public. His men’s team at USC won 10 national titles and he guided the women to six crowns.
The vast majority of those charged in the hospitalization scandal have pleaded guilty and served their sentences, generally measured in weeks or months.
Among the more high-profile parents charged in the testing portion of the scheme was actress Felicity Huffman, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud for paying $15,000 to Singer to boost her older daughter’s test scores. Huffman spent 11 days in jail in 2019.
Another actress, Lori Loughlin, spent two months in jail and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, spent five months in jail for paying $500,000 to get their two daughters into USC as recruited athletes.
Singer, who pleaded guilty to multiple conspiracy charges in 2019, is scheduled to be sentenced in November, according to the Justice Department.
CNN’s Steve Almasy contributed to this report.
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