2nd Parent Gets Prison Time in College Admissions Scandal

A Los Angeles businessman who paid a $250,000 bribe to have his son admitted to the University of Southern California as a water polo recruit is going to prison. Devin Sloane—whose son didn't even know how to play water polo, according to prosecutors—is the second parent to be sentenced in the college admissions bribery scandal, CNN reports. Prosecutors say Sloane, founder and CEO of a water systems company, bought water polo equipment online and took photos of his son in a backyard pool, which a bribed USC coach used to create a false profile of the teen. Sloane, 53, was sentenced Tuesday to four months in federal prison, two years of supervised release, and 500 hours of community service.

Sloane, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud in May, was also fined $95,000. CBS Los Angeles reports that the USC graduate had tears in his eyes during the sentencing hearing in Boston. "There are no words to justify my behavior nor will I offer any excuses or justification," he said. "In my heart and my soul I want what’s best for my son. I realize now my actions were the antithesis of that." Sloane's lawyers had proposed three years of probation, while prosecutors wanted him to serve a year in prison, the Washington Post reports. "Prison is necessary here as a great leveler between rich and poor," assistant US Attorney Eric Rosen said at the hearing. (Earlier this month, actress Felicity Huffman, another of the 35 parents charged in the scandal, was sentenced to 14 days in prison.)