Everything's Political Season 5 Episode 6 - John Wilson

Finding yourself caught in a legal storm can be a surreal experience. For John Wilson and his family, the college admissions scandal turned their lives upside down, as they faced accusations that questioned their integrity and intentions. In this gripping episode, John shares the emotional turmoil and perceived injustices they encountered, from the public scrutiny of his son Johnny's genuine athletic achievements to the distressing arrest by the FBI that left them in disbelief. We unravel the narrative of how a federal appeals court's unanimous decision to overturn core convictions marked a pivotal moment for the Wilson family, offering a glimmer of hope in their quest for redemption.

Our conversation with John exposes the complexities and contradictions of the legal proceedings they endured, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of the alleged bribery case involving USC. The discussion raises critical questions about fairness and integrity, as blocked evidence and a seemingly biased judge influenced the trial's outcome. We delve into the challenges John and his family faced, from the misuse of prosecutorial power to the impact of a severe concussion on Johnny's athletic career. This episode offers a thought-provoking perspective on justice and the resilience required to stand firm against daunting legal battles.

But the story doesn't end with the court's decision. John's fight for his family's reputation continues through ongoing legal battles against defamation and institutional shortcomings. Despite financial strain and career setbacks, his unwavering determination to seek the truth and protect his children's honor is nothing short of inspiring. As we explore John's legal journey, including lawsuits against USC and Netflix, we reflect on the broader implications of the scandal and the importance of supporting loved ones through adversity. Join us as we uncover the raw, emotional truth behind the headlines, revealing the human side of a national controversy.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, and welcome to Everything's Political. I'm your host,
Tayo Shoemak. You can also find us online at Everything's
Political dot substack dot com. Shout out to Magicman Joe Strecker,
the Merle Haggard of podcast producers.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I've been a work in man named all the lad
yet as long as my due hadn't been used, I've
bring a little bear that even man and s work.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
That's right. Merle Haggard passed away on this day in
twenty sixteen. But get this, Joe, he was also born
on this day in nineteen thirty seven. He was born
and died on the same exact day. Now, only an
excellent musician has that kind of timing. I'm just saying. Obviously,

(00:59):
the American country music star his good lord. His career
spanned for at least four decades. He had thirty eight
number one hits like Mama Tried, Oki from Muskoky, and
of course Work in Man Blues. He released seventy albums
and six hundred songs, two hundred and fifty of which

(01:23):
he wrote himself. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall
of Fame in nineteen seventy seven and into the Country
Music Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety four, six one
hundred songs. That, my friends, is what we used to
call a real content producer, is it not, Joe? I mean,

(01:47):
come on, you know, I'm not a huge country fan,
but I do like the old stuff because they wrote,
for the most part about real life and hard times,
and most of them you could see it all over
their face. And that's actually a great segue into our
interview today, because Wow, we have a family that has
gone through some hard times and found out how far

(02:13):
they're willing to go and how hard they're willing to
fight to save their own reputation. So take us out, Joe, everybody,
buckle up.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Save as the.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Okay. With us today is John Wilson, author of Varsity Blues,
the Scandal within the Scandal, and he's going to speak
with us about how his family was swept up in
the college admissions process melee with USC and you all

(03:07):
remember Felicity Huffman and Laurie Laughlin were also in that scandal,
but John and his family were different, and an overreaching
federal prosecution team weaponized that justice system against him and
his family for their own gain and he'll also talk
with us about that ongoing battle against that federal team

(03:29):
and USC and Netflix, all hopefully to restore his family's honor.
John Wilson, thank you so much for being here and
sharing your story.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
It's great to be here, and I really want to
get our story out there.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Oh man. Okay. So I read a lot of the
documentation and it's just infuriating. It's a rabbit hole down
which people must go, I think to understand the depth
of corruption under which your family suffered. And I think,
first of all, let me say this that all of
the core convictions against you have been overturned by a

(04:07):
federal appeals court. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeahs, they overturned.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, And I think a great place to start after
that is just to outline and remind our audience the
college admissions scandal was I think for the most part,
if not all of them, California families, because we have
USC and these family Yes, they were involved in falsifying

(04:34):
not just academic records and having people take exams for them,
the college entrance exams, but also athletic credentials. And then
the business of the admissions process and what donations have
to do with that process that USC ratified for you all,
but then change their mind later down the road. So

(04:55):
can we start with and Johnny was the was your
son that was ultimately admitted. He was admitted to USC.
He was a walk on, not a scholarship. Is that accurate?

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, he was a walk on player. He played on
the team the entire season in postseason.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
And can you tell us his athletic career up to
that point.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Absolutely, he had an extraordinary career. When he was a
young child, he had a world record. He was the
youngest person ever to swim from alcatratus to shore. He
was on the Oprah Show. He and his fourth grade
classmates raised fifty three thousand dollars And that's just a
typical example of what he would do. He competed nationally
and internationally for ten years in swimming. His swim times

(05:36):
were better than Johnny Weissmuller's gold medal times in the Olympics,
So that's how good he was. He played water pool
for six years on national teams. He played on the
Stanford club team and his high school and middle school team,
and he was always a starter on those teams. And
he competed in the national Junior Olympics. Every year he
won first place in one of the national Junior Olympics tournaments,

(05:57):
and he was also selected twice for the US Olympic
team for their development program. So he was the real deal.
His high school coach, who was also nationally recognized, he
was a two time MVP when he played water polo
in college, he was also an Olympic player. He recommended
my son to the USC coaches. He called them and
he testified, and he said, undoubtedly my son was a

(06:19):
Division one athlete. My son was being recruited by the
Division one schools as well, and his swim times proved
he was one of the fastest players on the US's team.
So most of that of this couldn't be brought into
our trial. His world record couldn't be brought into his trial.
My son's coach couldn't even bring his swim time into
the trial because the judge argued that that was the

(06:39):
swim time from the swim team and he was the
water polo coach and he didn't witness at time, so
he couldn't bring it in. And that's how rageous the
trial was. Right, So my son was a real player.
He joined the team. Leslie and I traveled thousands of
miles to visit him, to watch him at practices, watch
him at games, and cheer the team on. He was
a red shirt like ten other red shirts on the team.

(07:00):
Water Polo is the sport were speed is the most
important skill, and he's one of the fastest. But they
also only have six players on a water polo team
that play offense and defense in addition to the goalie.
The US team was national champions they had thirty six players,
so only about ten or twelve played. He was a
red shirt like ten other red shirt players, so he
practiced the team throughout the entire season in postseason, but

(07:22):
he didn't play in games his first year. Most freshmen
would rarely play on a national championship team in terms
of games, so he was one of the star players.
He was one of the fastest players, and yet they
ridiculed him, and the federal government said falsely that he
was an alleged athlete. That's what they said to the meet,
he was an alleged athlete and that he wasn't qualified
to play, and who are they to judge and to

(07:44):
say that right, They just fed the media that kind
of false narrative, and you can imagine how devastating that
would be for my son. He was twenty years old
at the time. His entire life he had been spent
in academics and athletics, and he's spent probably five hundred
to seven and fifty hours a year for ten years
training in swimming and water pool at the national and
international level. And to have federal prosecutors be rate you

(08:06):
and say you're an alleged athlete or that you weren't
qualified was despicable and just a horrific experience. And to
this day he still lives to that stigma. Where do
you go to get your reputation back, earn that back?
And that was just part of it. The same thing
with my daughters. My twin daughters were also spired foalcy
by prosecutors. They worked hard, studied hard, got a perfect

(08:28):
score on the Act and a ninety nine percentile score.
Fewer than five thousand students worldwide out of one point
eight million get a perfect score, so they were very
talented and get the prosecutors said they were unqualified. They
were sixteen years old, my twin daughters. You know how
fragile teenage girls can be. Yes, And imagine being a
sixteen year old and having the federal government tell the

(08:49):
world you're not qualified and imply that you cheated on
your test when you didn't, And how do you prove
to your other students and other people that you didn't cheat.
The government never alleged they cheated, because we got lumped
in with thirty other parents who did cheat. It was
guilt by association. They all cheated, so people in the
media assumed that we had cheated when we didn't, and

(09:09):
we were never accused of cheating, but we got lumped
in and smeared anyway, And being a sixteen year old
girl with all the normal peer pressure and other issues
growing up as a young girl, teenage girl, having the
feedow government imply that you cheated has been devastating for them.
And that's why I want to spend the time to
correct the record.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Now were they were they part of this?

Speaker 3 (09:29):
They were, they were part of this process as well,
so they were accused during the setup calls. We had
known singer for ten years and had trusted him by
the time we were talking about my daughters, and they tried
to infuse i'll say, incriminating sound bites in the setup
calls they had for six months. They tried to set
me up with Singer and with the let me step back.

(09:49):
The context is important. Singer had over three thousand parent clients.
Only one percent were ever charged. The vast majority of
Singer's clients were honest, hardworking people, people like Steve Jobs
even as a client. So he had many famous people,
and most people were honest people like I was. And
he did legitimate services. He did real tutoring through his
company for kids, and his tutors helped my children a lot.

(10:12):
He did real college counseling, He did real charity work.
I drove my son from northern California to Sacramento from
the Bay Area on weekends to help him do tutoring
for inner city kids. I was an inner city kid
growing up myself. I grew up in Hartford in the projects,
so I like that. So he did real service, real work,
legitimate work, and ninety nine percent of his clients were
never charged. They were innocent people. So that's the overall

(10:35):
context that what happened about thirty parents were explicitly involved
in doing bad things. They were cheating on tests. They
talked about cheating on tests. How much it cost to
get this grade in that grade. They're paying people to
take their kids tests, they were falsifying records for their kids,
taking fake pictures and so forth. And they were also

(10:55):
bribing coaches. They were talking explicitly about bribing coaches. I
never did any of that. The closest they got in
my trial was they had thirty other parents talking about
bribing coaches and doing bad things, and they played that
over those tape recordings over and over for the jury.
Then during my setup calls Singer says to me, are
you okay if we give a check to the coach?

(11:16):
I say, yes, We always give a check to the coach.
It was a check made out to the school. Just
like at USC, you have to give the check to somebody,
you give them credit. You don't just throw the check
in the pool. So we said, yes, give a check
to the coach. It was made out to USC, and
we got a receipt for it. But the jury only
hears thirty other parents bribing the coach again and again
and again, and then in my recording, he says, are

(11:37):
you okay if we give a check to the coach,
and they assume that's a bribe. No, it was a
check to the coach made out to the school, not
a check or cash to the coach for his personal account.
And that kind of thing happened over and over. That's
as close as they got to incriminating evidence on me.
But they can set you up that way. So even
though my son really played on the team, they also
got one of the USC assistant coaches who confessed to

(12:00):
committing fraud but didn't get arrested and didn't get fired
by USC. In fact, he got promoted by USC. He testified. Yeah,
so he testified that my son was only there the
first day. That was not true. We had a picture
of the team picture, by the way, was taking several
weeks into the season, and guests who was standing right
next to my son that coach, But we couldn't bring

(12:22):
that evidence in, right, So there could be all kinds
of things the government can do in this process that
would just scare the average person. For example, government witnesses
can lie in the stand. The only people can charge
your government witness with perjury is the government. What do
you think the odds are of the government charging one
of their own witnesses who's helping them with perjury? Very

(12:43):
very low. And so you can do all kinds of
things to tilt the playing field, and that's what they did.
They had people who were literally committing perjury on the stand.
They brought in other people's evidence had nothing to do
with me, and then they blocked my evidence six hundred
and sixty times. They blocked by evidence six imagine that.
So that wasn't just irrelevant evidence. It was things like

(13:04):
my daughter's perfect Act test store that wasn't allowed into
my trial. The judge say, was hearsay irrelevant my son's
swim time. That was part of the reasons that my
charges all get overturned. But my son's swim time was
also blocked. My own emails showing that I trusted Singer
were blocked from my trial, and USC records showing they

(13:24):
gave donors admissions boosts more than one hundred examples of
that were blocked from my trial. So they blocked ninety
eight point three percent of my evidence. Literally ninety eight
percent of my office was blocked. And then they brought
in all these other parents' bad acts and smeared me
with that, And so it was just a totally unfair
trial that was so outraged that eleven former US attorneys

(13:45):
appointed by both Republican and Democrat presidents. Chief attorneys wrote
a letter unpaid by me, to the court saying John
Wilson did not receive a fair trial. That never happens,
it's so rare. And then the appeals court unanimously overturned
all of my core convictions. So this process has been
outrageous from day one, and it's probably we're talking about

(14:06):
why they went after me and why I was so
different than all the other parents, because it's shocking. When
people hear that, they say, wait a minute, why were
you even charged? Right? These other parents confessed to bad acts.
They were caught on audio bribing, cheating on tests, faking
photos of their kids playing sports they didn't even play.
Why were you lumped in here? Well, that's an important

(14:28):
part of my story too, if you look back at
what happened. The singer had several thousand clients. They were
all primarily based in California. Ninety ninety five ye were
in California. About thirty of them did these bad acts.
Those thirty were primarily in California. The Felicity Huffins and
Laura Laughlin's the Boston prosecutors uncovered this case from somebody

(14:49):
in Connecticut, and they wanted to have the media spotlights
and the trials for this case all take place in
Boston instead of being handled by the LA prosecutors. So
they needed some basis to justify bringing all these trials.
I was the hook they needed to justify bringing all
the trials for Felicity Huffman and Laura Lauflin. I was

(15:10):
Singer's only client in Massachusetts. They had to charge at
least one Massachusetts defendants and then say there was a
conspiracy across all the parents to justify bringing all the trials.
They literally to bring several hundred people from California, including
all the witnesses, the coaches, and so forth, back and
forth between California and Boston, with only one Boston defendant.

(15:30):
It makes no sense from a cost point of view,
efficiency point of view, time point of view, but they
needed to do it to create the career spotlights they
could help boost their own careers. So they charged me
even though they had overwhelming the evidence that I was innocent,
even though my facts are completely different than all the
other parents, and then they roilroded me through a trial
that was so unfair and overturned, which almost never happens,

(15:54):
to really cover up the false charges against me. And
so that's how we got ensnared in this horrific situation.
It has been devastating. It's been almost seven years now.
We had to fight to correct the record and clear
our name, and they.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Cherry picked the judge, they cherry picked the venue. And
clearly the three key KPIs there. The athletic credentials, the
academic records, and the donations process as it relates to admissions.
You all did not fit that mold in any way,
shape or form. And is it accurate that USC and
I think the legal documentation uses the word ratified your

(16:33):
donation with thank you cards.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yes, we got to thank your learn to receipt from
the school.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yes on USC letterhead and copied the coach and assistant
athletic director.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right, USC solicited a donation. We met with the school,
we met with the development people, We met with the
coach to verify our son's credentials, and they told us
that they had walk on positions, non scholarship positions, and
that if you make a donation to the school, that
could help your admissions prospects. And so we talked to
the donation department about that and we made a donation
through Rick Singer's organization. We did that to largely insulate

(17:04):
us from future requests. Most people don't have the history
we have. We've given a lot of donations over the years,
and when you give a lot of donations, especially large donations,
the development department tend to keep coming back at you
again and again. So to avoid being hounded, we made
our donations through Singers organization and we verify with USC
was that accepted to Yes, We've done that many times

(17:25):
in the past. They verified that, and they gave us
a receipt for our donations. Then at my trial they
testified that essentially that wasn't allowed, that that was a bribe.
So you gave me a receipt. I didn't know you
gave out receipts for bribes. It's just crazy. It made
no sense at all. And then the judge instructed the
jury during my trial that, yes, giving a donation to

(17:45):
a school can be a bribe to the coach, say
what this is the first time. Another there's a group
of law professors from Harvard and other schools and also
wrote a support brief saying This is the first and
only time in history that theons of a bribe can
be the victim of the bribe. The schools said they
were the victims of the bribe, but they got the money.

(18:07):
It's not possible for the victim of a bribe, you're
the one who got the money. You bribe somebody else
to have somebody else do something on your behalf. The
victim can't be the one who gets the money. And
yet that's what the school was claiming. They were the victims,
and they've kept my money to this day. So we
have a lawsuit against USC for defraudius. They gave me
a receipt and kept my money to this day and
then set up my trial essentially that we were the

(18:28):
victims and we were bribing the school, we being the USC.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Right makes no sense. And so and just to verify
your son's athletic record, and obviously your daughter's academic records,
none of that. For instance, Johnny would have been registered
as an NCAA athlete, would he not?

Speaker 3 (18:48):
He was, absolutely he was registered by the school as
an NCAA athlete. He's still on the USC website showing
him as a team member from the twenty fourteen team Wow,
and there are medical records, but the trial blocked all
of that. So in my trial, for example, he got
a concussion while at school. He got taken out of
the pool. He was thrown up in the pool. He
got taken by one of his teammates, the goalie, who

(19:08):
drove the team captain's car to take him to the
USC hospital. It wasn't an emergency, but they want to
get him the right away. He was vomiting and they
took him to the USC hospital. They diagnosed him with
a concussion, and then the athletic trainer for the team
was sending emails back and forth to the USC hospital
when can Johnny come back into the pool to train?

(19:28):
He was out of the pool for six weeks, but
he showed up every day at training above deck during
those six weeks during his concussion protocols. All the information
was blocked by the judge and by the prosecutor because
it proved he was on the team. So the USC
medical records and the emails from the training staff to
the USC medical staff asking when can Johnny be back
into the pool, that was all blocked.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
And under what premise was that blocked?

Speaker 3 (19:52):
It was blocked his hearsay, and the judges approved it.
These were all legitimate motions, right, That's part of the
reason why everything got overturned. Judge who was eighty six
years old, rubber stamped every motion that the prosecutors made.
We even had one of the senior prosecutors who left,
and these guys got million dollar partner rules. He was
at a after the trials were over. He left before

(20:14):
the trial. He was at a law firm reunion where
another lawyer who wasn't publicly hired by me but was
helping us, was meeting and with this reunion with a
number of colleagues, and they happened to bump into each
other and they were talking and he said, Yeah, we
were even shocked how supportive this judge was. That's what
he said. He instinctively rubber stamped everything we wanted. And

(20:35):
once he did that, we just kept going. That's what
he said. So they were shocked at how supportive this
judge was. The head of the office.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Now, now, Johnny, is it accurate that he after that
concussion in twenty fourteen, that that was pretty much his
end of his career at the in the water polo.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Yeah, that was his fourth concussion, and in high school
he had a very severe concussion, and they measure your
brain activity and brain process speed, so they have good protocols.
And after his high school concussion, and it can happen
to water pole a lot. The guys who are in
the middle can throw their elbows when they're fighting for
the ball. They can kick you when they're turning around
and kicking kick you in the head. So you can
get hit in the head quite a bit with elbows
and knees and feet. And so he's had four concussions

(21:17):
up three before this one, and so in high school
the last one was pretty severe and his processing speed
never recovered fully, so we knew he was already vulnerable.
So this fourth concussion that happened in college, he said
at the end of the season, he went back into
the pool and trained the end. I need to protect
my brain for my future career, so I can't risk
having another concussion. So he resigned at the end of

(21:38):
the season in a letter to the coach after the
season in January of twenty fifteen and said, I need
to protect my head for my future. And that was
how his career was ended, and the prospector been like, well,
this is also kind of planned. He was never on
the team. He was never going to play, even though
he played in national tournaments and he won first place
in one of the national Junior Olympics tournaments. You know,

(21:59):
just just crazy.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
So, just for the timeline's purpose, this was in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
He writes the letter to the coach resigning from the team.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Resigning from the team, and I'm just assuming everyone goes
about their business and what happens next, John, I mean,
are you aware of what's going on?

Speaker 3 (22:20):
And not at all. We went to several games and practices.
We were flying thousands of miles to go visit him
in the school. We went and cheered the team on
with the other parents and the other red shirts. So
we went to multile games and practice. Everything was fine.
We made a donation of the school. They gave us
a receipt. Johnny went to school, he graduated from the school.
So we thought everything was fine. Then in twenty nineteen,

(22:45):
the government find Singer in twenty eighteen and confronts him
with some facts and some very damning phone calls that
he was making that they had recorded, and they got
him to cooperate and try to set up other parents.
So that's when he started making some set of calls.
This is five years later, and this is when we're
talking about my daughters who are now sixteen, my twin daughters,

(23:06):
So that's when they're trying to set them up. So
fast forward then to March of twenty nineteen. I was
flying in. I was a consultant flying in from Europe
to me with a client in Houston and a normal
routine business meeting. I get off the plane in Houston
and two FBI agents pulled me into a back room
and arrest me and handcuffed me. And I said, what

(23:29):
I'm in shock. I've never been arrested in my life,
and they tell me I'm under arrest for honest services fraud.
I said what, I said, what is that? What does
that mean? You'll never guess what the FBI as is
arresting And he told me, we don't know, we've never
heard of it before. It that it's some really unusual
charge we've never heard of before, but it's some kind

(23:50):
of fraud.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Why does that not surprise me?

Speaker 3 (23:52):
I said, how can that be? I said, you must
have the wrong John Wilson SAI the Res said, you
must have the wrong John Wilson. I said, there's fifteen
thousand John Wilson's in the US. I said, I never
committed for out of my life. And they say, what
was your address? Blah blah blah outside of the Boston
mass Oh, you're the mats. Use this guy. They say, no,
you're the right guy. And so then they proceed to
book me and it gets much scarier from here. They

(24:15):
then bring me to a federal prison, not a jail,
a federal prison. And here's what eight hundred inmates, this
big fortress. They strip me down, bring me to the guards.
They hand me off to these guards. They strip me down,
throw me in this large shower room like a communal shower.
Two guards pose me down with these power moses like
an animal, and then they give me a jumpsuit. Right, so,

(24:36):
now I'm just about to enter into this prison cell
block and it's like one you see in the movies.
It's a two story cell block. There's multile cell blocks
in this large prison with about sixty inmates in this
cell block in the common area mulling about, and the
guard booth is all like plexiglass or bulletproof glass whatever
windows looking in and I'm still telling the guards I'm talking,

(24:56):
not worried about sharing anything, even though I don't have
a lawyer, saying I don't even know why I'm here.
They couldn't tell me that. Yeah, yeah right. I said, seriously,
I have no idea why I'm even here. And the guard,
one of the guards finally took some sympathy, said, maybe
believe me. He said, well, you better watch your back
in there, you know. And he says, you're the only
old white guy in the cell block, and they're going
to assume you're a pedophile. I said, well, they're going

(25:19):
to falsely assume you're a pedophile because old white guys
tend to be pedophiles, and they hate pedophiles in here,
and someone's probably going to try to stab you with
the ship. He says, to watch your back, So now
you can imagine I'm terrified. I said, well, can you
put me in to my prison cell and lock me
in keep me safe? No, you can't. Lockdown's not till
whatever nine o'clock tonight, and if you stay in your

(25:41):
cell before then, they'll think you're a they'll really try
to I said, what do I do? He says, watch
your back? In there, if anybody comes behind you, watch
your back. So now, literally, for the next day and
a half, I'm in the cell block. This is on
a Sunday, before I've got arrested, before an whe else
is arrested. They did this just to try to intimidate me,
and so they put me in the cell block and

(26:02):
for the next day. I have no idea why I'm
even there, and I'm fearing for my life. I said,
this is how insane this is. So these federal prosecutors
put me in a federal prison where my life was
at jeopardy to intimidate me for making your donation when
they knew I was innocent. They had all this overwhelming
evidence that I just gave my money to the schools
I got receipts for and to real charities. My kids

(26:23):
didn't cheat, they were highly qualified, We didn't fake anything.
It turned out that Singer did put some fake information
of my son's profile. He changed my son's swim time
by eight percent. Okay, I didn't even know it, but
he did that. He said, that's a federal fellow me.
I said what, But I was being put into this
jeopardy situation where they could have killed me because I
made a donation to a school and they needed me

(26:44):
for the venue of Boston. I was the hook for
the Boston Hook. I was for the Boston trials, and
they threw me In's this incredibly horrific situation. And that
was just day one of how this started, and it
gets worse from there, and the book goes through many
other examples that are even scarier than that. They could
do you in this process. So it's just outrageous how
the prosecutors can abuse the system the way they can,

(27:07):
how they can weaponize it for their own personal gain.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
I mean, were you, were you officially charged? Were you mirandized?

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Were you?

Speaker 3 (27:15):
I was mirandized by the FBI, but they couldn't tell
me what I was being charged with except for the crime.
They could say it was on a services from but
they had no idea what it was. And so that
was it. And I was in this federal prison for
the next day. So then the next day I got
my one phone call. I called my brother who's a
civil attorney in Tennessee, and he came down and got

(27:35):
a criminal lawyer from Texas from Houston, and the next
day I'm a gonna have to walk in the hallways
with shackles. I got shackles on my legs, on my ankles,
I got handcuffs on my hands, and I'm shackled. Go
to this meeting room from the prison and they come
into this meeting room through a plexivass window. And that
was the first time I heard what really happened. They said,

(27:55):
I said, what's going on here? They must have the
wrong John Wilson said no, no, no, you're part of this
big thing with fifty people were all being charged with
fraud and conspiracy and bribing. I said, what I didn't?
Said something about Rick Singer. He was bribing coaches, and
he was test cheating and all this stuff that was
in this big indictment. I said, I didn't do any
of that. It must be again a case of mistaken identity.

(28:18):
And that's the first I even heard. This was about
Rick Singer and about you know, some charges of cheating
on tests and faking profiles and bribing coaches. I said,
I didn't do any of that. So then I got arraigned,
or not arraigned. I had to make a plea in
a bond. It was a bond hearing in Texas, and
this is also where the government gets extremely abusive. So

(28:39):
there's prosecutors in Houston who are in the courtroom part
of this jail facility or prison facility, and they're on
the phone in the back of the room talking to
the Boston prosecutors. And the judge had already had her
bail bondsman or whatever, talk to me, and she says,
she's going to put me on a bond. Let me
go on a bond, and the prosecutors in Boston, no, no, no,
we want all cash. We want a million dollars in

(29:01):
cash before you release it. And the judge that's absurd,
I said, that's excessive. This guy has never been arrested
in his life. He's a family man that's been married
for thirty years, he's got children, he's not a flight risk.
And they said, we want to appeal your decision. Throw
them back in prison. They threw me back in prison
so they could appeal her decision. And she said, I'll
put them back in but only till the end of

(29:23):
the day, and then if you don't have new information,
I'm gonna let him out of a bond. So they
threw me back in just to intimidate me again. They
knew they had no new information, so they threw me
back into the prison. And then I get called up
at the end of the day again and she says,
do you have any new information? No, says I didn't
think you would. Why'd you put him back in? That's
our right, we can appeal it. And then she let
me go on a bond. So it's just that was

(29:44):
just the first two days of what they did and
how dirty they could play, in the extreme tactics they
could use against you in this kind of process. Right,
they threw me back into that prison again just because
they could to intimidate me, right, And it just it
went from there to get work and worse and worse,
and they kept piling on charges in this case, it's crazy.

(30:05):
They knew I was the most person that all the
facts that proved I was innocent. They charged me with
three times more charges than anybody else, even more than
Rick Singer, the ring leader. They charged me in the
end with nine felony charges. That's more than Sam Bankman free. Wow,
one hundred and eighty years of prison time for making
a donation. And they kept threatning to charge They charged
me four additional times, four sets a superseding charge that

(30:27):
spread out over a year, and every time they kept saying,
if you don't play guilty, and now we're going to charge
with more. And they were all related to the same thing.
They were like honest services fraud, than bribery, than federal
programs bribery, but then wire fraud because the money went
through the wiring system. And they kept doing this over
and over again. And at the end, I said to
my lords, they could charge me trying to kill Kennedy
and being on the grassy hole. I don't know. I'm

(30:48):
not going to plead guilty, and so I said, you
can keep charge Malijuan, I'm not gonna plete guilty. So
then they finally stopped. But I was facing one hundred
and eighty years of prison time. That's what they can do, dude,
before to plead guilty.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Well, and they're sure, and that's exactly why they want
to bully you, and they they're going to punish you.
But that's how they weaponize the justice system. They're going
to punish you for not doing what they want right
and whether you know whether you're innocent or not, they
don't care. And I think we've seen so much evidence
of that especially in the last five six years, that

(31:22):
it has gotten out of hand.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yeah, it's totally excessive and extreme. And then they could
do other things like judge shopping. They're able to prop
a venue shop for Boston. But then within Boston they
were able to get the right judge. They basically sprinkled
some low level cases, some test takers, a couple of
coaches here and there, and they got each judge randomly
assigned from Boston to one of those cases. And once

(31:44):
they had to think there were only six judges in
Boston federal judge at the time. Once they had five
or the judges sprinkled, they got the judge they wanted,
they preferred judge, and then they stopped. And then they
amended the complaint and said, this is one giant conspiracy
and we're going to put all the parents on this
one judge that we want. And as soon as they
judge shopped for that judge, there was a group of
fifteen law firms that represented all the parents, the major

(32:06):
law firms in the country said you can't do this,
this is judge shopping. I think twenty five lawyers signed
this letter. And the judge said, no, it's fine. And
he had to. He basically said no, and the magistrate
judge said no, it's fine. And once they approved this judge,
who was basically a rubber stamp, half of the defense
immediately changed their plea from not guilty to guilty within

(32:27):
a week because they knew this judge wouldn't give them
a fair trial. And that's what happened throughout our entire
next two year journey. He ruled against us one hundred
percent of the time, and our major pretron motions and
our lawyers, some of the best lawyers in the world,
and the other lawyers said, we have some good motions here,
and we should win some of them. We won't win

(32:47):
them all, but win some of them. We won zero
points zero percent. The judge ruled against us every single time.
And one of the judge's own decisions said, didn't say
I was alleged. They said John Wilson hasmitted fraud and
bribery in his opinion. He said it declaratively, maybe by mistake,
but it showed his mindset. He didn't say he's alleged
to have had one of his opinions said he's committed

(33:11):
bribery and fraud. He already wrote that he already concluded
before our trial even happened what we had done. And
then you know, during the trial, as I mentioned earlier,
he blocked our evidence ninety eight point three percent of
the time. He just kept blocking every motion that the
prosecutor's made. So my daughter's perfect act test course not
allowed in on a trial about college admissions. A perfect

(33:32):
act test course not allowed in right.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
That doesn't make that.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Kind of thing right, It doesn't make any sense at all.
That's one of the reasons they got overturned. But when
you're in a trial and they can hand pick a
judge like that, all you can do is lose at
trial and go to appeal. The judge is the final say.
And so if they pick a judge wh's very supportive
like that, he's the final saying. You've got nothing to do.
And the judge was saint. Was taken up on appeal
multiple times, taken up on appeal.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Which is so lazy. That is intellectually and physically lazy
of anyone in the judiciary, and it's antithetical to the
jurisprudence that founded the country because you, according to the judge,
were guilty and then you had to be proven innocent.
It's the opposite. In this country, are supposed to be
supposed to be.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
In fact, one of these that happened at the end
of the trial I have the transcripts, was just getting crazy.
The judge is getting so fed up with us trying
to introduce evidence that proved by innocence. At the end,
he went to the prospers and said, I assume how
much more evidence do you have. We said, we got
another whatever, sixty or seventy pieces. He said, well, I'm
just going to overrule it all on Mass. He said, what,
you don't even know what it is. We said, how
can you do this? He said, well, I know they're

(34:34):
going to object. I know we're going to just basically
waste our time. I'm going to just overrule your evidence,
en Mass. That's the end of the trial. So even
the stuff we had at the end, we didn't let
us introduce it. He said, just put it all in
for the appeals court, and I'm going to overrule it
all on Mass.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
John, I'm assuming that In the book, and again it's
Varsity Blues, the scandal within the scandal there. You also
have an excellent website where people can read the rule
the lawsuits, and I believe the guy did I see
a video or was it the lie detector guy that said.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yes, there's a polygraph as well. Yes, we did everything
possible to prove our innocence. Here. The book is available
now for pre order on Amazon dot com. It's available
in the twenty second of April. All the proceeds from
the book are going to nonprofits, going to charity. This
is not about making money. It's about getting our story
out there and clearing our name and doing what we
can to help make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
And do you name names in the book?

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yeah, there are some names in the book, but other
places you can look at, you know, and determine who
the people are pretty easily.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
I think the biggest set of issues in the book
is really trying to share the evidence and share the
fact so share Our website does that as well. Sure,
I was working hard to prove by innocence. One of
the things we did is wanted. I was worried about
actually dying before I got to clear our names all
the stress. You know, I'm not a young spring chicken,
and so I wanted to take a polygraph test and

(35:59):
we want to do that in a way. It's very credible.
And people who said to us, the lawyers, well, there's
a lot of polygraph people out there that'll give you
an answer that whatever you want. They're not very high
quality and that's why they're not usually admissible. So I said, Okay,
let's get the best person out there. So we got
the former head of the FBI polygraph program. He run
the polygraph school for the FBI or the whole division,
and he when he heard about this case, look, I

(36:20):
also want to bring in the head of the CIA
polygraph program. This guy ran the school for all the
federal government, taught all the federal government polygraph experts and
examiners for a decade. So we had the head of
the FBI polygraph program and the head of the cif
CIA polygraph program, and I spent ultimately three full days
taking polygraph tests, more than they've ever seen anyone take

(36:40):
before I volunteered to do this. I passed twenty five questions,
all with flying colors, and we asked every question imaginable
off this case. Did I know Singer was doing this?
Did it bribe this? Did my kids cheating on their test? No?
That I put in a false information. No, was Johnny
a real water polo player? All these things right, We
passed every single test, and we gave it to the

(37:00):
government as we went and filed a suit against Netflix.
We used it in Netflix as well, and the government
had it all and at my sentence they said it's
just all self serving. Well, yes, it's the truth. They
dismissed it, all self serving, and the judge dismissed it
as well. So I don't even see that it's self serving. Well,
it's the truth done by the head of the FBI
and the head of the CIA. The government actually tests

(37:22):
their own people fifty thousand times a year, right. They
believe in polygraphs. When they're administered properly, polygraphs can be
very powerful tools. And so I had the head of
the FBI do my polygraph and then have it separately
quality controlled by the head of the CIA Polygraph Division,
and so they verified everything, and the government just dismissed
it all because it didn't fit their narrative. So we

(37:43):
did everything we could to prove our innocence, and we
volunteer to take polygraphs as well with them, and it
just never happened. And they didn't care about the truth.
It wasn't about the truth to them. It was about
covering up the false charges and railroading through a trial
and then railroading you through the appeals process. And I'm
still fighting to the day against Netflix and USC to
restore our honor.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
And so the USC lawsuit is regarding the well, I
would say they fraud against you.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yes, they did fraud. USC defrauded us back in twenty fourteen,
when we met multiple people and they said that this
was fine, this is acceptable, this was consistent school policy.
And then in my trial they said no, we didn't
do this. This was not a school policy. This was bribe.
I said, what, And so we're suing them for fraud.

(38:31):
And then Netflix was also warned. Netflix came out with
a movie several months before my trial, even about this case,
and they took all the worst parents who had already
played guilty, who had really bad facts, people talking on
the phone about cheating and bribing and taking fake photos,
and they lucked me in with them. And we thought
there was a risk of that, so I had my

(38:51):
lawyers write them a letter before the movie came out
to warn them and said, look, we gave them a
five hundred and fifty page warning letter. Right had all
of our facts. They said, we're totally different than every
other parent in Varsity Blues, and here's why. So it
gave him my son's all of his facts, and true
water polo pictures and all the swim times, my daughter's
perfect act test scores. All these things were in there,

(39:13):
and Netflix ignored it all and just put me in
their movie. And they basically interspersed me in their movie
multiple times with all these other parents bad acts to
make me look bad again, guilty by association. And they
also excerpted certain sound bites to make it sound incriminating. So,
for example, in one of the conversations they show, I
say to singer trying to clarify where the money's going.

(39:35):
I say, so, I don't give the money to the schools.
I give it to you. He says yes, and they
play that, and then they play somebody else's sound bite
where they're talking about bribing a coach at the school,
and so it makes me sound really bad. What they
didn't show, what we have in our lawsuit is that
the very next sentence out of my mind, out of
my mouth is oh and then you give the money
to the school. Well that's different than a bribe. But

(39:57):
they didn't play that sound bite, right, So they just
selectively at things like that, and they did that over
and over throughout their movie. And they took a picture
of a kid standing in the shallow end of the pool,
and then they show them editing that picture, and they
show my voice when the guys editing that picture the
beginning of the movie, implying that my son was standing
in the shallow into the pool. It wasn't a water
polo player, right, So they did that kind of thing

(40:19):
over and over throughout the movie, and so we filed
a suit against them for defamation, and we actually have
prevailed so far against usc. We won the very first
big hurdle, you have to win his emotion to dismiss,
and we won, and the judge said, no, no, no, John
Wilson wasn't a fake athlete. He was a real athlete.
You could argue he was a good athlete or bad.
He was a real athlete, and the movie depicted him
as a fake athlete. And my son was John Wilson,

(40:42):
Johnny Golston. And so we've prevailed so far. Now we're
in Discovery. But again, these guys USC and Netflix, they
drag things out. They'll drag it out for five years
to try to deplete you of resources and willpower to
continue fighting. Thank god, I've got the primary law firm
on contingency on both those because they've depleted us. The
government has forced us to spend. You won't believe how

(41:03):
much money we had to spend. We had to spend
over ten million dollars my entire life savings. They gave
us millions of documents. It costs over three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars just to scan the documents that the
government gave us so we could put them in a
readable form. Think about that. To go through five years
of trial and trial prep and then to go through

(41:24):
the appeals court process. They just bury you in financial
costs and in this entire time and not been able
to have a job. So I've lost my job at
the peak of my career, had to spend my entire
life savings fighting this and we're still not out of
the woods yet. And it's just how devasiting it can be.
And they weren't counting on that. But I'm a fighter.
I've been a fighter my whole life, and so they

(41:45):
were probably underestimating me because everyone else just came. Everyone
else just caved and pled guilty. Now their facts were worse.
They had facts where they were talking about on the
phone bribing or cheating on tests. We didn't do that.
But most people, even if they're innocent, can't afford to
fight the government. So even as bad as it's been,
I'm actually fortunate I had the resources. I've been successful.

(42:05):
I'm a self made person. I grew up in poverty.
I grew up with a single mom in the projects,
public housing projects of Hartford, Connecticut, so I wasn't given anything.
I picked tobacco for four years from the age of
twelve to sixteen to help my family straight by. So
I wasn't born with a silver spoon. I've been born
to fight for everything I've got, and I've had to
live and fight for everything I've got, And so I'm

(42:27):
a fighter, and I'll fight to protect my kids to
my last breath and my last dollar. And you know
that's just the way I am. And they didn't count
on that. So I'm going to continue to fight, even
though now with this book, I'm sure there's a high
risk of retaliation. They can continue to come back to
me for any little minor thing and my taxes or whatever.
Even the tax charge that remains, the fourteen hundred dollars charge.

(42:48):
It's absurd, It would never be a federal felony, but
they try to stick it to you as part of
this overall process. And so my wife is worried about us,
you know, facing more retaliation. They can be very vindictive
this process. Even at my sentencing for this fourteen hundred
dollars tax charge, they had four government lawyers attend that
four lawyers a ten sentencing hearing, and they recommended spent

(43:09):
almost an hour with the judge recommending that because I
was wealthy, I deserve to be made an example of
and that I should serve fifteen months in prison for
this you know, fourteen and twenty five dollars tax mistake. Wow,
And the judge overruled that. But that's how vindictive they
can be. It's like really wow.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
So there, I mean, this is government that can print money, right,
they don't they live off our money. I just I
think government is just full of looters who use our
money to bully us in many cases. And this is
this is a great example of that. And this is ridiculous. This,
if you are a self made person, you have to

(43:49):
be punished and so anyone, you know, we and we
have a general, a sweeping generalization out there that anyone
with any means didn't earn it, and so we should
be able to take it away. And you know, it's
frustrating that government plays on that and then promotes themselves

(44:11):
as the hero for the little guy and not the
promoter of an actual producer of society's It was sad.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah, As I said earlier, I came very humble beginnings,
picked tobacco for years and years. Education changed my life.
Education transformed my life, and I wanted to give back
and I was very successful. I hope that it was successful.
I ran companies. I was the COO of Staples, I
was a president of Staples International, of was CEO of Gaping.
And I was successful and I made money, but I

(44:41):
made it dual fashion. I worked seventy hour weeks for
years and years. I've traveled and worked in ninety five countries.
I worked internationally. So I had a tough life, working
very very hard, and I earned everything. And I know
the value of a dollar. I was working for less
than a dollar an hour picking tobacco, sweating out in
the hot fields forty hours a week. So I know
the value dollar. And when I was donating one hundred

(45:01):
thousand dollars to USC, I knew just what it could
mean in terms of making a difference. I got a
scholarship that helped get me out of poverty. So I
was giving money for more scholarships. And to take that
and use it and weaponize it against me and to
say I was pure evil for donating to give a
tiebreaker boost to my kids who were qualified. By the way,
our kids were very different. It's one thing to give

(45:22):
a donation to get an unqualified kid in, which could
then in turn bump a more qualified child. It's hard
to have a more qualified kid than someone who got
a perfect testcoo. And so we were giving a tiebreaker
boost to highly qualified kids. That's what we were told.
That's what we're misled by the schools and by Singer
and by the federal government. Did they set up calls
with me? So we weren't doing like the other parents

(45:44):
are doing, is getting unqualified kids in onto a team
or into a college. We were giving money to help
those schools and to help our kids get a tiebreaker boost.
It's something that continues to this day. Most schools out
there have still favorite programs where if you're a donor,
you get special if you're a legacy you get special admissions.
If you're a VIP, a political VIP, if you're able

(46:06):
to ford full tuition, if for family has high enough
income to forge full tuition, they can give a boost.
They give boost to faculty children. There are many categories
where schools to this day give boosts and admissions. It's
not illegal.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, the correct one of ours. To be eligible for
an academic scholarship or legacy program, one of the boxes
you had to check was you had to join this
particular group at x amount. Yeah, I mean it was
a donation right for every year. And so you know,
I don't even think you can argue degree that. I
think the issue is that is part of the admissions process,

(46:40):
whether they want to admit it or not. I mean,
that's just crazy.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
The USC at the trial said no, that wasn't and
that was what was shocking, and that's our basis for
filing the lawsuit for defrauding us. At my triale. They
basically said that was a bribe, even though they gave
me a receipt for it.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
That's that's the kicker, right there, is the receipt. And John,
I'll tell you I could talk to you for another
four hours and I so appreciate it. But let me
ask you this as we close, is how your family
is doing now.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
They're still struggling. You can imagine you imagine if you
were a teenage girl at sixteen years old, my twins
and you're being bullied not by a school yard, you know,
someone holds a grudge, but by the federal prosecutors of
the United States government and basically telling people that you
were unqualified. Or my son who was twenty years old
at the time and have his entire life geared around

(47:33):
sports and athletics since he was nine years old and
he had the world record, you know, he's been active
in sports his whole life, playing at the national and
national level. Had the federal government saying you're an alleged athlete.
They called them an alleged athlete, you must say he's
alleged human being, right right? Absurd. So that's been devastating
for them and they're still struggling. I think the unfortunate
thing is the instrument makes their scars both deep and permanent. Sure,

(47:56):
and so the amount of media covers for this case
has been horrific, and so we're trying to build more
counterbalancing media coverage here, but it's hard. No once, just
like when I was accused in the beginning, it makes
front page news when they put some false information and
corrected it, it's page thirty four and a foot right
seven days later. And so where do you go to

(48:17):
get your reputation back is a classic question, and that's
what we're struggling with, and they're struggling with that to
this day. And it's been more painful than I can
ever imagine and explain as a father, to see your
innocent children suffer at the hands of the federal government,
the way they smeared them, it's just despicable and it's
devastating because you can't do anything. All I can do
is try to get the truth out there, to try

(48:38):
to correct the record put To see the federal government
attacking my innocent children has been devastating. To watch my
poor wife for almost seven years now cry yourself to
sleep just about every night worrying about our children. And
worrying about their reputations. It's just horrific beyond words. And
all I can do is rededicate myself to try and
get the truth out there and help make sure it

(48:59):
doesn't happen anybody else.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Yes, one hundred percent. And I think you know that's
a that's a reciprocal thing. So the more we get
the truth out, the more people are aware, and we'll
hope hopefully fight. I mean, I can't imagine, you know,
we're brought up to we're told to trust government. Now
I'm I don't trust authority, just that's my nature. I
think I was born that way. But boy, I mean,

(49:23):
as time passes, John, it is it's difficult, especially after
hearing stories like yours, to put faith in and well,
they're people, they're falling, just like everybody else, right.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Well, believe or not. I still do trust government, maybe
talking to you, and I do trust law enforcement. I
think most of them are pretty good people, hard working,
dedicated people. I think, like any large organization, there could
be some bad actors, right, So I don't think everyone
in government is bad by any means, and I don't
think everyone in the judicial process or the criminal justices
are bad. I just think there could be some bad

(49:57):
actors and they can abuse that power in a way
that is just shocking and devastating. So I believe still
in the system, and I'm still fighting the system, but
I think there are some bad actors that need to
be rooted out.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Reined in. Okay, amen, I hear that, all right? John.
I can't thank you enough for being here today. We
will We'll push this far and wide. I wish you
well in God's speed and including your family, and please
come back anytime.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
Well. Thank you so much again. The books available on
Amazon dot com. So the Scandal within the.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Scandal Scandal within the same and that is an excellent website,
Scandal within the Scandal dot com. Thank you, fantastic, Thanks John.
What a harrowing story. This is just further proof that
there are two sides to every story, and whatever we
see on the news or hear from government or some
big beer bureaucracy or whatever, we need to check that

(50:56):
before we make a decision or a judgment. I mean,
holy cow, And I told John off the air, I'm
going to repeat it here if nothing else, what a
blessing he is to his family. He is not backing down.
He has spent everything and his family and his wife

(51:20):
understands that Dad's got their back. And that's what a
man does. He steps out in front of his family
and says, you're not getting to my family. In this case,
that was being bullied by federal prosecutors who wanted to
make a name for themselves. And I know we've all

(51:45):
we've all known about the college admission scandal. So I'm
going to encourage you again to go to his website,
Scandal within the Scandal dot com. And then the book
is Varsity Blues the Scandal within the Scandal that's available
again on Amazon, and I would just encourage you to
prouse that website. It's excellent. You can read the briefs,

(52:07):
you can read the lawsuits, you can hear the testimony.
The videos from the polygraphers, the FBI and CIA polygraphers
very powerful. So again, weigh the evidence. We should do
that for ourselves, regardless of who is claiming guilt or innocence,

(52:29):
and so I wish them godspeed. Okay, we're going to
stop there. I want to thank you all for listening.
Thanks as always to magic Man Joe Strucker. Until next time,
who will stand at either hand and keep the bridge
with me. Have a great day,