Feds: Ex-coach walked into Mexico without a passport ahead of ‘Varsity Blues’ sentencing

A former UCLA men’s soccer coach, due to plead guilty Wednesday to a racketeering charge for accepting $200,000 in bribes from parents of bogus college recruits, violated his probation by walking into Mexico last week without a passport, federal prosecutors say.

Jorge Salcedo, 47, will plead guilty to a racketeering charge in U.S. District Court and now faces a judge who will also take into consideration the unauthorized border crossing.

“Mr. Salcedo indicated he crossed the border in McAllen, Texas because he was told he could walk across without a passport,” Jessica Turkington, a U.S. probation officer wrote, noting she learned of Salcedo’s trip when Customs and Border Patrol said they interviewed the ex-coach.

Salcedo claimed to be a partner in the Series3 Medical company which he alleged is working on securing personal protective equipment for front-line health-care workers, and traveled to the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, for a meeting.

Turkington noted Salcedo had no permission to travel to Texas or Mexico. She wrote Salcedo thought he was no longer bound to his probation conditions after signing his plea agreement in March.

Salcedo previously requested a March trip to Mexico City for “business purposes,” Turkington wrote. She objected to the March request because Salcedo had not reported any employment as required by his pretrial release agreement. The ex-soccer coach then claimed he was working as a consultant and being paid via funds delivered to his wife’s bank account.

When the officer later asked Salcedo for documentation regarding Series3 Medical, he was unable to provide multiple documents, including any verification that the company needed him to travel to Mexico.

Prosecutors have asked federal Judge Indira Talwani to sentence Salcedo at the “low-end” of sentencing guidelines, with an undetermined fine and $200,000 in forfeiture. It is unclear what penalties Talwani may issue for the probation violation.

Talwani, who gave actress Felicity Huffman a 14-day sentence for paying a corrupt proctor $15,000 to boost her daughter’s college testing score, has already issued a wide range of sentences for parents in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal. Defendants before Talwani have received terms ranging from probation to five months in prison.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3haSGyz