The Varsity Blues Trial: What We’ve Learned About College Admissions

The government says that he did it by bribing coaches and others who were working with him, at universities including U.S.C., Stanford, Yale and Georgetown, and that it strains credulity to think sophisticated businessmen like Mr. Wilson and Mr. Abdelaziz did not realize that. Mr. Wilson wrote off his payments as business expenses and charitable contributions, prosecutors say.

Some of the money actually did go to the university’s athletic programs, like $100,000 from the Wilson family, according to prosecutors. Other payments went into the pockets of those involved, prosecutors say.

The jury must decide on charges including conspiracy, bribery, fraud and, in Mr. Wilson’s case, filing a false tax return. Mr. Wilson’s lawyer said Wednesday that “taxes are complicated — people make mistakes all the time on a tax return.”

Mr. Abdelaziz is accused of paying Mr. Singer $300,000 to get his daughter, Sabrina, into U.S.C. as a top-ranked basketball recruit even though she did not make the varsity team in high school. Mr. Wilson is accused of paying Mr. Singer $220,000 to have his son designated as a water polo recruit at U.S.C. in 2013 and then going back to Mr. Singer in September 2018 to pursue having his twin daughters admitted to Harvard and Stanford.

Mr. Singer told Mr. Wilson, who had a house in Hyannis Port, Mass., “I’ll make them a sailor or something, because of where you live,” according to a recording played in court.

“How did the defendant respond?” Mr. Frank said in his closing statement. “He laughed, and then he asked if he could get a two-for-one special.”

The exchange was intercepted in a court-authorized wiretap, and neither man knew that the government was listening in, Mr. Frank said. The F.B.I. approached Mr. Singer about a week later.