A former television executive and attorney, Elisabeth Kimmel, lost her attempt to undo her guilty plea in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, with a federal judge affirming that her conviction stands. U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton ruled on December 31 that Kimmel’s plea was voluntary and knowing, and that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling did not affect the government’s case against her.
Kimmel, who paid $525,000 to William “Rick” Singer to secure fake athletic admissions for her children at Georgetown University and the University of Southern California, argued that her guilty plea relied on the concept that a university slot constitutes “property” under the law. She contended that the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Ciminelli v. U.S., which rejected the “right to control fraud” theory, should invalidate her conviction.
Judge Gorton disagreed, stating that Kimmel was charged under two separate theories, one of which was not impacted by the Ciminelli ruling. The judge emphasized that Kimmel, a Harvard-educated attorney, had entered her plea with full knowledge and had already lost an attempt to dismiss the indictment on similar grounds.
