Operation Varsity Blues parent requests resentencing

Investment firm executive Douglas Hodge filed a motion in federal court Thursday announcing his intention to request that his Operation Varsity Blues sentence be rescinded, stating that the government failed to release sufficient evidence to his defense before the sentencing.

Hodge received the longest sentence and the largest fine in the college admissions case to date at his hearing last month. He will serve nine months in prison, two years of supervised release and 500 hours of community service and pay a fine of $750,000 for securing his children’s admission to USC and Georgetown University as fake athletic recruits. 

In the motion filed Thursday, Hodge claimed he believed his payments would fund university athletics departments rather than be used to bribe coaches. He cited documents the government released last week to parents involved in the admissions scandal, including a note from scheme organizer William “Rick” Singer’s iPhone that he wrote following a phone call with FBI investigators. 

In the note, Singer stated that he deliberately misled parents to believe the money they paid for their children’s admissions would fund legitimate donations to university programs. The note stated that federal investigators had asked him to testify that the parents knew their payments would be used as bribes.

“They continue to ask me to tell a fib and not restate what I told my clients as to where there money was going — to the program not the coach and that it was a donation and they want it to be a payment,” the note read.

Hodge requested a 30-day extension on the March 11 deadline to file an appeal, saying the prosecution did not release all relevant evidence in time for him to form an argument that may have merited a lower sentence.

“The recently disclosed exculpatory information … supports Mr. Hodge’s contention that he made payments with the expectation that his money would support university athletic programs,” the document read. “The government’s inappropriate withholding of that information deprived the Court of its ability to evaluate Mr. Hodge’s argument based on all available information.”

Hodge worked with Singer to arrange for his children’s admission to USC beginning in 2012. Singer solicited the help of women’s soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin to create a soccer recruitment profile for Hodge’s daughter featuring falsified awards and positions that senior associate athletic director Donna Heinel presented to an admissions subcommittee. The process was repeated in 2015 with Hodge’s son, who Heinel tagged as a football recruit despite the student not playing football after his freshman year of high school, according to court documents. Both children received offers of admission but did not play their respective sports when they enrolled at USC.

Hodge pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in October for paying $850,000 to have four of his children falsely designated as athletic recruits on their college applications. Two were admitted to USC and two to Georgetown University. He was also accused of conspiring with Singer to arrange for his fifth child’s admission to Loyola Marymount University. He plans to turn himself in March 20 to begin his prison sentence, according to court documents.