Prosecutors: Pimco Ex-CEO Sentenced to Prison in US College Admissions Scam

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Prosecutors: Pimco Ex-CEO Sentenced to Prison in US College Admissions Scam

The former head of asset management firm Pimco was sentenced on Friday to nine months in prison for his part in a scheme in which privileged parents paid bribes to get their children into U.S. colleges, federal prosecutors said.  

Douglas Hodge, who retired as chief executive of Allianz SE's California-based Pimco in 2016, also was sentenced to two years of supervised release, a $750,000 fine and 500 hours of community service, a spokeswoman for Boston U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in an email. 

The prison term imposed by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston was less than the two years prosecutors had sought, but the longest of the 15 defendants who have admitted guilt and been sentenced since the nationwide cheating scandal came to light last March. 

Prosecutors called Hodge, 62, among "the most culpable" of 35 parents charged. Unlike 14 other defendants who received prison terms ranging from one day to six months, prosecutors said Hodge and three others who entered guilty pleas in October deserved stiffer sentences. 

'Repeat players'

"They are repeat players, who engaged in the conspiracy again and again, over years," Lelling said in a sentencing memo. Hodge paid bribes totaling $850,000 over nearly 11 years to get two of his children into Georgetown University and two others into the University of Southern California, prosecutors said. 

He tried and failed to offer bribes to get a fifth child into Loyola Marymount University, they said. 

In all, 53 people have been charged in the college admissions scandal, including "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman and "Full House" actress Lori Loughlin. Huffman pleaded guilty and served less than two weeks in prison, while Loughlin pleaded not guilty. 

The case revolves around consultant William "Rick" Singer, who admitted in March that he facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and bribed sports coaches to present his clients' children as fake athletic recruits. 

Singer, who has yet to be sentenced, is cooperating with prosecutors. 

'I am deeply ashamed'

Hodge had said that Singer falsely told him his money would go toward university programs and underprivileged student athletes, but he admitted that he failed to pull out of the scheme once he learned of Singer's deception. 

"For that, I am deeply ashamed and remorseful," he wrote in a letter to the judge. 

Hodge also insisted, contrary to a prosecution claim, that he never involved his children in the scheme. 

Hodge's lawyers, citing his philanthropy and devotion to his children, had asked the judge to consider splitting incarceration with home detention. 

February 08, 2020 at 09:27AM

Thinking Magically

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Thinking Magically

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The paintings of Jorge A. Yances evoke a mysterious interplay between past and present, reality and fantasy, a style called magical realism. 

"I paint first and foremost because it is a necessity for myself. It's something that I have to do almost every day, even if I take just the pencil and just draw on a blank paper. It is a feeling of satisfaction of the body and the mind to be able to create something," he says.  

For more than 15 years, Yances has created paintings using vivid colors and delicate brushstrokes. Yances' artwork has been critically acclaimed and exhibited throughout the United States, South America and Asia.

Jorges Yances

Magical realism is often described as "surreal," and Yances says it was by chance that magical realism entered his life.   

"The magical realism part was not something I set out to paint because I did not know what it meant. I only knew of Gary Garcia Marquez and his magical realism literature," he says. "A professor at the University in Tennessee came in my gallery downtown close to Hillsboro Village in Nashville and she said, 'Your work is nice and it's so magical realism.' It was then after she explained what it was that I agreed that yes, my paintings can be called magical realism."

Yances' art contains complex hidden images. He describes magical realism this way:

 "Magical realism for me is expressing something that is inside of you. I let the painting pretty much be free. I don't want to show what's behind it. Sometimes there's three or four different layers on the paintings," he says.  "So, the faces and the bodies and everything that appears on my canvases, they are there. I don't paint them.  They kind of reveal themselves." Some of Yances' drawings come from discoveries from his native city of Cartagena, Colombia. Yances emigrated to Nashville, TN with his family when he was 13. 

Jorge Yances

Yances says the teachings of a relative also influenced his art. "My aunt was also an artist. She taught my cousins and me. She wanted us to know the different between watercolor and oil painting, the smell of paint and just all the little details," he says.

Yances says his aunt taught him that technique is not enough. Any artist can portray the beauty of a city, he says, but she encouraged him to reveal more than what may be visible. 

"It is more than paint on a canvas," Yances says. "It is art which detects the power of the stories that surrounds all of us."

February 08, 2020 at 08:19AM

Seven Democrats Brace For Crucial Debate in New Hampshire

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Seven Democrats Brace For Crucial Debate in New Hampshire

Coming off the muddled Iowa Caucuses early this week, seven Democratic candidates face off Friday night in a presidential debate in New Hampshire seeking to capitalize on early momentum or to rebound from a disappointing start.

Those on the stage in Manchester, New Hampshire, are most specifically targeting voters in that state as they prepare for a primary election Tuesday. But after months of debating with no voter input, the race has a sense of sudden acceleration with nominating contests in four states this month and 14 more on the first Tuesday in March.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., listens as he is introduced during the Politics & Eggs breakfast at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Feb. 7, 2020.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg carry the most momentum into the debate with Buttigieg having earned the most delegates in Monday's Iowa caucuses and Sanders winning the most popular votes.

Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign stop at the Merrimack American Legion, in Merrimack, N.H., Feb. 6, 2020.

Sanders, who represents neighboring Vermont, is the clear favorite in New Hampshire where he dominated in the 2016 primary with 60 percent of the vote. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, sharply criticized Buttigieg at a "Politics & Eggs" breakfast Friday at Saint Anselm College for accepting contributions from billionaires.

Pre-election polls show an opportunity for former Vice President Joe Biden to bounce back after a dismal fourth-place finish in Iowa.

Just behind Biden and Buttigieg in the polls is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was third in Iowa.

They will be joined in the debate by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, entrepreneur Andrew Yang and billionaire Tom Steyer.

Several other Democrats are still in the race, but did not meet the national Democratic party's requirements for the debate. To qualify, candidates could either earn at least one delegate in Iowa, or amass donations from 225,000 individual donors and show either 7% support in two polls in early voting states or 5% in national or early state polls.

Those who did not make it can try to qualify for the next debate February 19 in the western state of Nevada ahead of the February 22 caucuses there, or the February 25 debate in South Carolina before that state holds its primary later that week.

Like the candidates who did not perform up to their expectations in Iowa, the party itself has a chance to bounce back in New Hampshire after what Iowa state party officials called a "stumbling block" in reporting their results that left candidates and voters wondering about the final outcome for two days.

Democrats will formally name their presidential nominee at a convention in Wisconsin in July.

Republicans hold their convention in August to nominate incumbent President Donald Trump.
 

February 08, 2020 at 07:25AM