A former Harvard fencing coach was acquitted Wednesday of charges that he accepted more than $1.5 million in bribes in exchange for designating a wealthy businessman's two sons as recruits to help secure their admission to the elite university.
Defense attorneys didn’t deny that Zhao paid too much money for Brand’s home or helped him in other ways financially, but they said it had nothing to do with getting Zhao’s sons get into the school. They argued that Zhao bought the house as an investment and that the payments were loans to help out a good friend in financial need. Brand paid back Zhao with interest when the coach inherited money from his late mother, the defense said.
“We are grateful to the jury for their service and for doing justice in this case,” Bill Weinreb, an attorney for Zhao, said in an email. Douglas Brooks, Brand’s lawyer, said in an email that “the verdict today exonerates Peter Brand who is 100% innocent.”Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said prosecutors “fundamentally disagree,” but they respect the jury’s verdict.
In his closing argument, Brand’s lawyer called it an “alleged crime in search of a victim,” saying prosecutors provided no evidence the teens took slots away from more qualified recruits. He said that if Zhao wanted to bribe Brand, he could have done so with a bag of cash. Instead, Zhao purchased the home in his own name and paid Brand’s bills using his own checks.“The government’s bribe theory makes no sense,” Brooks said. “There are fingerprints everywhere.
Brand didn’t disclose the payments from Zhao to Harvard, authorities said, and Brand was fired from the school in July 2019 for violating its conflict-of-interest policy.
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