Napa Valley winemaker gets five months of imprisonment, the longest sentence so far in college admissions scandal

As reported in this Los Angeles Times piece, "Agustin Huneeus Jr., a prominent Napa Valley winemaker until his arrest in the college admissions scandal, was sentenced Friday to five months in prison for paying to rig his daughter’s school entrance exam and trying to sneak her into USC as a bogus athlete."  Here is more:

The sentence is the latest handed down against a slew of wealthy, influential parents who opted to plead guilty to charges that they conspired with William “Rick” Singer, a college admissions consultant at the center of the scam, to fabricate test scores and bypass the admissions process at elite schools.  Singer, too, has pleaded guilty to several felonies and is cooperating with prosecutors in their cases against his alleged accomplices.  He awaits sentencing.

With her decision, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani dealt more harshly with Huneeus than she did with other parents sentenced so far, but stopped well short of the 15-month sentence that federal prosecutors had said was an appropriate penalty.  Lawyers for Huneeus, meanwhile, had conceded before his sentencing that the 53-year-old father of three should not avoid prison altogether, but asked Talwani for just two months behind bars.  Huneeus, they said, already had been punished badly by the loss of his company and public humiliation. Along with incarceration, Talwani ordered Huneeus to pay a $100,000 fine and serve 500 hours of community service.

Huneeus hurriedly stepped down in March as chief executive of Huneeus Vinters, a company his parents built, after being named as one of the dozens of parents charged in the scam. He pleaded guilty soon after, admitting he paid $100,000 to buy into the admissions scheme and was primed to pony up another $200,000 before authorities went public with their case.

Prosecutors had argued in court filings that even in a case marked by the greed and entitlement of exceptionally rich and privileged families, Huneeus stood out for his brazen, unabashed foray into the scam and his efforts to avail himself of all of Singer’s illegal offerings.  “Huneeus’s crime was calculated and carefully planned,” wrote Assistant U.S. Atty. Justin O’Connell in a memo to Talwani.  “From the outset … Huneeus wanted to know exactly how the fraud worked, proposed ways to make it more effective, and demanded Singer’s attention. He did all this while acknowledging to Singer that what they were doing was wrong, that the scheme could ‘blow up in [his] face.’”

Of the 11 parents who have pleaded guilty in the case, O’Connell underscored that only Huneeus paid Singer both to inflate his daughter’s SAT score and secure her a spot at USC by allegedly bribing members of the school’s athletic department....

In arguing for a light sentence, lawyers for Huneeus emphasized in a court filing that Huneeus’ daughter did not enroll at USC and, so, did not end up taking a spot at the selective school from a more deserving applicant.  But after watching Talwani in recent weeks rebuff defense attorneys for other parents who argued their clients should be spared time in prison altogether, Huneeus’ defense team accepted he was destined for incarceration and tried instead to mitigate the punishment by underscoring Huneeus’ clean track record and reputation for fairness and kindness among people who worked for him.

Until his downfall, Huneeus ran his family’s company, which owns several brands of wine and made news in 2016 when it sold one of its popular labels for a reported $285 million to another company. He relinquished control of the company in the days after his arrest over concerns his legal troubles could put the company’s license to produce wine in jeopardy.

Huneeus himself struck a tone of contrition in a letter to the judge, saying he accepted responsibility for his crime.  “I am looking forward to my sentencing so I can start to put this behind me.  I want to pay my dues and feel clean again. This has been the most consequential experience I have ever had to overcome and it is self-inflicted,” he wrote.

On the same day Huneeus learned his fate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed three bills in response to the college admissions scandal, including a mandate that any “admission by exception” to the state’s many public campuses be approved by multiple university administrators....  Newsom also gave his signature to a measure that prevents those found guilty in the admissions scandal from getting tax deductions for payments they made to Singer, which he often funneled through a sham charity.  The third measure approved by Newsom requires the California State University and University of California systems, as well as independent universities, to report to the Legislature whether they provide any form of preferential treatment in admissions to applicants on the basis of their relationships to donors or alumni.

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
• Next parent sentenced in college admission scandal gets four months in federal prison
• Next parent up in college admission scandal sentencing also gets four months in federal prison
• BigLaw partner gets one month federal time as latest parent sentenced in college admissions scandal