Veteran gaming industry executive Gamal Aziz is finally ready to get back to work now that he has ended a lengthy legal ordeal that could have landed him in jail.
Aziz, also known as Gamal Abdelaziz, an executive who has worked with three of the city’s top casino companies and opened Bellagio on the Strip and Wynn Palace in Macau, received the best news of his life on July 20. It was then that he received final notice from U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Groton of the federal government’s case against him for fraud and conspiracy, charging him with paying a $300,000 bribe to get his daughter admitted. at the University of Southern California as a basketball recruit, he was done.
Aziz was part of a group of parents of prospective college students accused of wrongdoing in “Operation Varsity Blues,” a Justice Department investigation into unfair college admissions practices.
The only unpunished father
Aziz was the only father accused who was not punished in the case. Aziz and private equity executive John Wilson were found guilty in Massachusetts District Court in October 2021 and sentenced four months later. Wilson was sentenced to 15 months and Aziz to 12 months in prison. They were allowed to remain free pending appeals.
The two appealed to the United States Court of Appeals in Boston, and in May a three-judge court ruled, in a 154-page judgment, to vacate all of Aziz’s and Wilson’s convictions, except for entering a plea. false tax report, which was confirmed.
Despite vacating the conviction, Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch was not happy with the parents’ conduct.
“Nothing in this opinion should be construed as endorsing the defendants’ conduct in seeking college admission for their children,” he said. “We are not saying that the conduct of the defendants is at all desirable.”
After reviewing the decision, U.S. Attorney General Rachael Rollins chose not to proceed against Aziz, and Groton complied with her order.
The investigation uncovered inequities in higher education and led to more than 50 guilty pleas, including those of actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
Aziz viewed the sentence as an exoneration but, in an exclusive interview with the Review-Journal, he said he learned a lot about the judicial system and about himself in the case.
“It’s completely over,” Aziz said. “It has really been worth fighting for. Normally, these types of cases last one or two years. But thanks to COVID it lasted longer. There was not a single minute that I did not decide to fight for justice and truth, despite the fact that many others had decided to plead guilty. The vast majority of parents did, but I felt that this would be a betrayal of justice and my integrity, so I decided to fight and now I feel that I have been vindicated”.
Accusations made in 2019
Aziz said that after the allegations were first made in March 2019, USC hired a team of investigators who reviewed his daughter’s application to the university. Aziz, who did not want to reveal the name of his daughter to protect her privacy, was allowed to stay at the school.
“Now he has a job and he has done it exceptionally well,” he said. “So the school basically let her stay, she one of the few kids that was allowed to stay and continue until she graduated, so she hasn’t been affected at all. They basically considered her request to be correct and truthful, so she was not affected at all. That obviously has been my position from day one. We were not part of all this and, once my daughter was acquitted, it was evident that she was going to be vindicated ”.
She graduated in marketing and public relations and has a job at Kylie Cosmetics, Kylie Jenner’s company.
Aziz blames himself for not being more involved in getting his daughter into college. At the time, he was living and working in Macau, building Wynn Palace, the four-billion-dollar resort just off the Cotai Strip that many consider the most elegant in Asia. His family lived in Hong Kong, an hour away.
Due to the demands on his time in a critical period of development for the Wynn Palace, Aziz contacted California admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer, the so-called mastermind of the Operation Varsity Blues plot.
“Because he (Singer) had helped with college applications before and came highly recommended, we were in China and I thought I would get help for my daughter to apply,” she said. “Being busy and building this difficult project, I trusted him and he recommended that we make a donation to women’s athletics, and that’s what I did, having trusted him over the years. Actually, I never doubted that there was something wrong or that there was some red flag. Basically, it was a complete surprise when the case occurred.”
previous donations
Aziz said he had donated money to every school his children had attended over the years, so a donation to fund USC’s Galen Center didn’t seem out of the question.
But the prosecutors disagreed and the case was launched.
Aziz said that after the charges were filed, he had no communication with the other 53 parents or with Singer. Several advisers told him that he had little chance of winning a trial and that he just had to plead guilty like the others.
“At that time, the media said that I could fall five, ten or twenty years,” he explains. “But my family agreed with me that I should fight.”
And a guilty plea could have posed complications for gaming industry regulators, who could have scrutinized his suitability for a license.
When Wynn Palace was completed, Aziz decided to leave the company and form his own hotel operation, Legacy Hospitality Partnering, focused on developing wellness resorts. He started with a group of executives he had previously worked with at Wynn and MGM Resorts International.
“As soon as the case happened, a lot of the investors backed out and I decided to focus on the case and a lot of my team members have gone ahead and gotten amazing jobs,” he said.
“They’re doing really well, which is gratifying to me because it tells me I picked the right team and they’re thriving now.”
As soon as he was told there would be no further attempts to prosecute him, he began talking to other gaming and hospitality companies about possible opportunities.
“The goal is to get back to work because it would be incredibly difficult to get the team back together,” he said. “I’ve received interest from people I deeply respect.”
But the most important thing for Aziz is that he has regained his integrity after more than four years.
“The first consideration was my family and my name. I have worked hard all my life. I don’t want to waste my efforts trying to save or gain time”.
