Former USC official implicated in Varsity Blues scandal released

A former administrator in USC's athletic department was released from prison after serving time for her role in the "Varsity Blues" scandal.

According to a report in Sportico, Donna Heinel was released from a low-security federal prison in California last week after serving a six-month sentence on a single charge of honest services wire fraud. Heinel was both an alum of USC and worked as a senior administrator in its athletics department.

In 2019, details in the Department of Justice's "Operation: Varsity Blues" revealed that Rick Singer organized a scheme through bribery of school officials and coaches where he would steer students from wealthy families towards certain schools like USC, Stanford and Harvard in order to gain admission. Singer created false profiles, portraying many of these students as elite athletes in sports they either did not play or had stopped playing competitively before looking at colleges.

Sportico detailed Heinel's role in the matter:

Federal prosecutors had initially sought a two-year prison sentence for Heinel, once the Trojans’ top female athletic administrator, describing her as “one of the most prolific and culpable participants in Singer’s athletic recruitment scheme.”

Between 2014 and March 2019, when she was arrested by FBI agents, Heinel directed approximately $1.23 million of Singer’s bribes to various USC athletic funds, according to prosecutors. Throughout that time, the government claimed, Heinel facilitated the admission of nearly two dozen USC applicants Singer sent her way by fallaciously presenting them to the university’s subcommittee on athletic admissions as legitimate college athlete prospects.

Heinel reportedly maintained that she did not believe the payments Singer directed her way were bribes.

In May, a federal appeals court in Boston overturned the convictions of two parents who were alleged to have paid Singer for his services. The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals took issue with the prosecution's "honest services theory," because jurors were instructed to treat admissions as actual property, which went against a prior Supreme Court ruling.

The federal government brought various charges against 51 people, including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. The most high-profile convictions were Loughlin and her husband, who each served short stints in prison. Dozens of people pleaded guilty to various roles in the ordeal, but three people who served had their sentences appealed.