Hyannisport man faces new charge in college admissions scandal

By Beth Treffeisen

Posted Jan 14, 2020

John Wilson indicted on one count of filing false tax return.

BOSTON — A Hyannisport resident who already faces several charges related to a nationwide college admissions scandal was indicted on a new charge of tax fraud Tuesday.

A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against John Wilson, a former Gap executive and the founder and CEO of the private equity and real estate development firm Hyannis Port Capital, on a charge of filing a false tax return, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

It is alleged that Wilson paid a total of $220,000 to secure his son’s admission to the University of Southern California as a purported water polo recruit, the statement says. Wilson then deducted that amount of money from his 2014 tax returns as charitable donations and business expenses, according to the statement.

An arraignment date has not been set.

Wilson also was charged in October with bribing USC employees to get his son into the school as part of the scandal known as Operation Varsity Blues. University employees designated the children of Wilson and 10 other defendants as athletic recruits, regardless of a student’s prowess in sports, or as members of other favored admissions categories, the Justice Department said at the time.

Wilson, who also has a Lynnfield address, was charged with conspiracy to commit federal program bribery in connection with the USC allegations, as well as two counts of substantive federal programs bribery in relation to his efforts to secure his two daughters’ admission to Harvard University and Stanford University, the previous statement said.

He also had previously been charged with conspiracy to commit mail and honest services fraud. The alleged scheme connected to those charges involved bribing SAT and ACT exam administrators to allow someone to secretly take college entrance exams in place of the defendants’ children or to correct their children’s answers after they had taken the exams.