Partner Keri Axel Quoted by Law360 on College Admission Scandal Trial Strategy

The “challenge for the government is that Singer is the most involved in the scheme rather than a small player testifying against a ringleader,” said Keri Axel of Waymaker LLP to Law360 on August 20, 2021. “Juries distrust that, and for good reason.”

With the trial of three parents charged in the college admissions scandal that broke in 2019 about to begin in Boston, prosecutors have yet to decide whether William ‘Rick’ Singer, the mastermind who helped the children of the rich and famous obtain entry in elite colleges, will testify for the government. Axel, a former federal prosecutor and first-chair trial lawyer, said “It’s much more credible when the lowest-level person who didn’t stand to gain very much testifies.”

Axel continued, “When the key coordinator of the scheme testifies, it smacks of something that might be engineered. That’s never the scenario that the government wants.”

Singer has plead guilty to charges that he helped elite families gain admission to highly competitive colleges by bribing coaches so that the teens were admitted as athletes or helping students cheat on standardized tests.