8NN | TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2022 | NATION & WORLD EXTRA - USA TODAY NETWORK
Parents appeal conviction in
college bribery case last year
Their sentences longest
handed down so far
Collin Binkley
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON – Two wealthy parents sen-
tenced to prison in the sprawling college
admissions bribery scandal appealed
their convictions on Monday, saying
they believed they were making legiti-
mate donations to get their children into
elite universities.
John Wilson and Gamal Abdelaziz
were found guilty in a jury trial last year
after prosecutors said they paid bribes
to cheat the college admissions system.
Both men were convicted of fraud and
bribery conspiracy, and Wilson was
convicted of additional charges of brib-
ery, wire fraud and ling a false tax re-
turn.
Their sentences are the longest
handed down in the case so far. Wilson,
62, was sentenced to 15 months in pris-
on, while Abdelaziz, 64, was sentenced
to a year.
The two men are the only parents
who have gone to trial in the case, which
has ensnared nearly 60 parents as well
as college athletics o cials.
Both have insisted they had no idea
their money was being used for personal
bribes, an argument they reiterated in
their appeals. They were led to believe
their money would go directly to col-
leges, their lawyers argued in new court
lings, saying they’re no di erent than
other wealthy parents who make dona-
tions to get a boost in the admissions
process.
“Wilson’s donations were intended
for the universities, not any individual,”
Wilson’s lawyers wrote. “The universi-
ties cannot be both the victim and the
bene ciary of the ‘bribes.’”
Wilson, a former Staples Inc. execu-
tive who heads a private equity rm,
was accused of paying $220,000 to have
his son admitted to the University of
Southern California as a water polo
recruit. Prosecutors said he later paid
another $1 million to get his twin daugh-
Michigan chief identi es o cer who
fatally shot Black man in confrontation
Lyoya was unarmed, face
down when he was killed
John Flesher, Bernard Condon
and Ed White
ASSOCIATED PRESS
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Michi-
gan police o cer who killed Patrick
Lyoya with a shot to the head has been
with the Grand Rapids department for
seven years, after starring as a pole
vaulter at a small college and marrying
his longtime girlfriend during a church
mission trip to Africa.
Christopher Schurr’s name had been
circulating since his face was seen in
videos of the April 4 confrontation with
Lyoya, a Black man. But his identity
wasn’t publicly acknowledged until
Monday when the police chief changed
course and released it, three days after
passionate demands at the funeral of
the 26-year-old native of Congo.
Chief Eric Winstrom said he was act-
ing “in the interest of transparency, to
reduce ongoing speculation, and to
avoid any further confusion.”
Lyoya, who was unarmed, was face
down on the ground when he was shot
in the back of the head, moments after a
tra c stop in Michigan’s second-largest
city. Schurr was on top of him and can
be heard on video demanding that he
take his hand o the white o cer’s Tas-
Wind farm
Continued from Page 6NN
farm would create 1,100 jobs and yield
$209.8 million in annual economic out-
put.
But SCC sta was not able to verify
those results, Carsley wrote. They
sought data supporting the conclusions
of the report from Dominion and was
told the company did not have any such
models or data.
The SCC called the report Dominion
relied upon “stale” and noted that the
cost data it used was derived from data
in the United Kingdom.
John Wilson, left, arrives at federal court, April 3, 2019, with his wife Leslie to
face charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal in Boston.
Wilson, a head of a private equity rm and former Staples Inc. executive, was
convicted in March 2022 of bribery and fraud charges for trying to pay more
than $1.2 million to buy his three children’s way into elite universities.
CHARLES KRUPA/AP FILE
ters into Harvard and Stanford, and
then led part of it as a tax write-o .
Abdelaziz, a former casino executive,
was charged with paying $300,000 to
get his daughter into USC as a basket-
ball recruit even though she didn’t even
make it onto her high school’s varsity
team.
Their appeals ask for an acquittal of
all charges or a new trial.
Both men portray themselves as vic-
tims of admissions consultant William
“Rick” Singer, the scheme’s alleged
mastermind. They say Singer led them
to believe the payments were for legal
donations, then used the money for
bribes. Singer has pleaded guilty and is
cooperating with the investigation.
According to Wilson’s appeal, Singer
“repeatedly described his donation
strategy as legitimate.” In reality, Singer
pocketed $100,000 of Wilson’s
$220,000 payments to USC, the brief
says.
er.
A forensic pathologist who conduct-
ed an autopsy at the family’s request
said the gun was pressed to Lyoya’s
head when he was shot.
The Associated Press left a phone
message Monday seeking comment
from Schurr, who remains o the job
while state police investigate the shoot-
ing. The AP reached out to him several
times over the past week, including
knocking at the door of his suburban
home. There was no answer.
Schurr, 31, grew up in Byron Center,
just south of Grand Rapids, and joined
the police in 2015 after attending Siena
Heights University in Adrian, Michigan,
where he studied accounting and was a
star pole vaulter.
He won an NAIA national champion-
ship with a vault clearing 17 feet, ¾ inch-
es and, as a junior, the university’s
scholar-athlete award, according to Si-
ena Height’s alumni magazine.
Schurr was active in his church when
he was younger, taking missionary trips
for Corinth Reformed Church in Byron
Center, according to a 2014 story in
Vaulter Magazine, a publication dedi-
cated to the sport.
Schurr said he was getting married
that year, and couldn’t a ord to have a
wedding celebration and take a sepa-
rate trip to Kisi, Kenya, to build homes,
so he decided to get married there.
“We’re going to do a wedding their
In a rebuttal, John Larson, Domin-
ion’s director of public policy and eco-
nomic development, responded that
“claiming that the information is ‘some-
what stale’ does not present an argu-
ment against reliability of the data or its
substantive analysis.”
Larson wrote that relying on UK data
should not present a concern and was
practical and necessary, given that the
U.S. o shore wind industry is nascent.
Larson also wrote that the commission’s
analysis relied on an “overly simpli ed”
assumption that a rate increase will
cause Virginia residents to reduce
household spending in other areas.
Some customers might not change
their spending if the increase is small, or
In their appeals, they argue that the
trial judge wrongly blocked evidence
that would have bolstered their de-
fenses.
Their lawyers said the judge exclud-
ed evidence proving that Singer de-
scribed his plan as legitimate and le-
gal. Lawyers for Abdelaziz say the
judge blocked evidence showing that
“USC regularly admitted students
through the athletic department in ex-
change for donations.”
Both men faulted prosecutors for
implying that Wilson and Abdelaziz
were associated with other parents in
the case, even though they didn’t know
Singers’ other customers and weren’t
aware of the scheme, their briefs said.
“Wilson was forced to convince the
jury not only of his own good faith, but
also that he was an outlier. That im-
posed an additional, if not insur-
mountable, burden,” his lawyers
wrote.
style,” Schurr told the magazine. “I
have an African out t already and my
ancee will pick out some fabric and
she’ll make a Kenyan-style dress.”
A Twitter account with his name
that appears to belong to the o cer
follows a few national track and eld
athletes, including a pole vaulter.
There are no Tweets associated with
the account. A Facebook page with
Schurr’s name appears to have been
taken down.
A college teammate, Ryan Hopson,
said Schurr was mild-mannered and
quiet in college, friendly and quick
with a smile.
“He always had a good vibe,” Hop-
son said. “I can’t say nothing bad about
him. I really can’t. … I was shocked to
see it was him, but I don’t know what
it’s like to be a cop and have my life on
the line.”
The police department’s decision to
release Schurr’s name was a reversal.
After the release of video of the shoot-
ing, Winstrom insisted he would with-
hold the o cer’s name unless he was
charged with a crime. It was described
as a long-standing practice that ap-
plied to the public as well as city em-
ployees.
But Lyoya’s family and Black lead-
ers, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, re-
peatedly pressed for it, including at
Lyoya’s funeral, which drew 1,000 peo-
ple Friday.
some might just reduce their savings, he
wrote.
Furthermore, nothing in the VCEA
requires the company to perform its
own analysis of “economic develop-
ment costs” or requires the commission
to consider such an analysis, Larson
wrote.
“The General Assembly has estab-
lished clean energy standards and goals
for the Commonwealth and based on
the inherent nature of public utility ser-
vice, there will be customer-borne
costs,” he wrote.
Other testimony in the case from out-
side parties has raised concerns about
the project’s price tag and Dominion’s
relative inexperience in the o shore
IN BRIEF
Depp nishes 4 days on stand;
led lawsuit to ‘ ght back’
FAIRFAX, Va. – Actor Johnny Depp
concluded a grueling four days on the
witness stand Monday, telling jurors in
a calm voice that he led his libel law-
suit against his ex-wife because it was
his best chance to reclaim his reputa-
tion, just hours after they heard audio
clips of him berating his wife with
coarse vulgarities.
“It was the only time I was able to
ght back and use my own voice,”
Depp said of his decision to sue Amber
Heard for a 2018 op-ed piece in The
Washington Post in which she refers to
herself as “a public gure representing
domestic abuse.”
He continued to deny that he ever
hit Heard, and accused her of hitting
him and throwing items including
paint cans and vodka bottles at him.
And jurors heard an audio clip of a con-
versation between Depp and Heard in
which she seems to taunt him and sug-
gests he won’t be believed or respected
if he were to publicly cast her as an
abuser.
Alaska’s cruise season starts
as industry hopes for revival
JUNEAU, Alaska – The rst large
cruise ship of the season has arrived in
Alaska, marking the start of what in-
dustry and tourism o cials expect will
be a more robust travel year after two
pandemic-stunted seasons.
The Norwegian Cruise Line vessel
the Norwegian Bliss arrived at a dock
in an industrial area near the edge of
Juneau’s downtown area on Monday.
Rows of buses and vans were on hand
to whisk passengers away. The weath-
er was cool and dreary, with drizzling
rain.
Lanie Downs, a spokesperson for
Cruise Lines International Association
Alaska, said the trade group is looking
forward to a “full season” again, with
hundreds of planned voyages.
In 2019, there were 1.3 million cruise
ship passengers in Alaska, a gure that
plummeted to zero in 2020, when no
large ships sailed to Alaska because of
the pandemic. Last year, there were
about 116,000 passengers, she said by
email.
Man who damaged LGBTQ
streetscape must write essay
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – A man con-
victed of burning tire marks across a
gay-pride streetscape in South Florida
while participating in a rally for former
President Donald Trump last summer
must write a 25-page essay on the
deadly 2016 shooting at a gay night-
club in the state.
A Palm Beach County circuit judge
ordered Alexander Jerich, 20, of Lake
Worth, to write the essay during a
Thursday hearing, according to court
records. The essay about the 49 people
killed during the Pulse nightclub
shooting in Orlando is due at a June 8
sentencing hearing for Jerich.
Jerich previously pleaded guilty to
felony criminal mischief and misde-
meanor reckless driving. Prosecutors
are asking for 30 days in jail, commu-
nity service and ve years of proba-
tion, while defense attorneys argue for
only community service and three
years of probation.
Brazil court deals blow to
Amazon gold mine project
RIO DE JANEIRO – A Brazilian fed-
eral court on Monday upheld the sus-
pension of an environmental license
for what would be the largest open-pit
gold mine in the nation’s Amazon rain-
forest, dealing a blow to the Canada-
based company behind the project.
Belo Sun Mining Corp. was appeal-
ing a 2017 ruling, which found that the
company’s consultation with local In-
digenous peoples and study on the
project’s socio-environmental im-
pacts didn’t meet criteria required by
the National Indian Foundation.
From wire reports
wind industry.
There have been calls for the com-
mission to consider a range of ratepayer
protections, including a possible inde-
pendent monitor, a performance guar-
antee and a cost cap.
In rebuttal testimony, a Dominion ex-
ecutive argued against each of those
proposals and defended the company as
an “an acknowledged leader in the de-
velopment of o shore wind in the Unit-
ed States.”
Company spokesman Jeremy Slay-
ton said in a statement Monday that Do-
minion was pleased “all parties to the
case have focused on ways to have the
best possible project and none have op-
posed it.”