Next parent sentenced in college admission scandal gets four months in federal prison

As reported in this New York Post piece, headlined "Businessman gets 4 months for bribing his son’s way into USC," the second parent sentenced in the college admissions scandal will be spending somewhat longer in prison than Felicity Huffman. Here are details:

A Los Angeles businessman who paid $250,000 in bribes to get his son into USC — lying that the kid was an international water polo star — landed four months behind bars Tuesday.

Devin Sloane, a 53-year-old water treatment company owner, had pleaded guilty in May to conniving with college admissions scamster Rick Singer and crooked University of Southern California officials to get his son into the top college....

The dad had put his son in a Speedo and swim cap and posed him with a water polo ball in the family’s backyard pool for photos to help create a fake athletic profile for the kid in the summer of 2017. With the help of his dad’s accomplices, the teen was then marketed to the university as an acclaimed international player with “the youth junior team in Italy” who participated in tournaments from Greece to Serbia and Portugal, the feds said.... The teen had never played the sport competitively.

Federal prosecutors in Boston said in court papers that Sloane also “bragged about misleading a USC development official to cover up the quid pro quo — using his dead mother as a prop for a fake donation — and even expressed outrage when high school counselors dared to question why a student who did not play water polo was being recruited to play college water polo.”

The feds had sought a year and a day in prison for Sloane, whom they said showed “moral indifference” during the scam. His lawyers argued for no jail time, instead offering that Sloane could do community service by working with kids at a private school.

Before sentencing Sloane, Judge Indira Talwani scoffed, “That’s about as tone-deaf as I’ve heard. The independent school kids are not the victims in this case,” according to WGBH-TV.

In addition to the four-month prison term, Sloane must complete 500 hours of community service and pay a $95,000 fine.

Sloane is the second parent to be sentenced in the scandal. The first, actress Felicity Huffman, received 14 days behind bars for her $15,000 bribe. Assistant US Attorney Eric Rosen said in court before Sloane’s sentencing that the dad was different from Huffman because the actress didn’t tell her daughter about the bribe scheme, thus avoiding directly involving her, while Sloane “literally threw his kid into the family pool,” according to a Law360 newswire reporter.

Rosen also noted the difference in the size of the bribes in each case.... But Sloane’s lawyers argued to Tuesday that their client didn’t completely understand that the money he was paying was a bribe.

Prior related posts:

• Mapping out next possible celebrity sentencings in wake of indictment in college admissions scandal 
• Big batch of federal plea deals (with relatively low sentencing ranges) in college admissions scandal
• Summer sentencing (with notable particulars) for first college admission scandal parents to enter pleas in court
• Federal district judge rejects feds request for significant prison term in first sentencing of college bribery scandal
• Gearing up for the federal sentencing of Felicity Huffman and others involved in college bribery scandal 
• Feds recommending incarceration terms from 1 to 15 months for parents involved college bribery scandal 
• Noticing the interesting (but perhaps not too consequential) guidelines "loss" issue lurking in the college bribery cases
• Gearing up for the next round of sentencings in college admissions scandal