A Los Angeles businessman whose tip ignited the biggest U.S. investigation ever into a college admissions scheme got a year in prison even after cooperating with prosecutors in an unrelated pump-and-dump securities case.
Morrie Tobin, who was sentenced on Wednesday in federal court in Boston, had asked the judge to spare him the eight to 10 years behind bars he could have gotten for securities fraud and sentence him instead to five years’ probation and a $4 million fine.
But U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton noted that Tobin was involved in two pump-and-dump schemes that defrauded “innocent investors” of $15 million over five years, and said he had to spend some time in prison. Gorton said his “extraordinary” cooperation entitled Tobin, 57, to “a large and unprecedented discount” off his term.
“I have never before in my 28 years as a judge granted an 80 or 90 percent reduction to a defendant facing an eight-year sentence,” Gorton said.
Prosecutors, too, had recommended probation, in a major break from U.S. sentencing guidelines of 97 to 121 months for Tobin’s crime.
“I’m extremely, sincerely sorry and ashamed of my actions,” Tobin told the judge before receiving his sentence. “I tried to do everything possible to make amends.”
The judge said he accepted Tobin’s remorse but that his motive was “pure and simple greed.”
Tobin, who was also ordered to forfeit $4 million, appeared in person in Gorton’s courtroom with his attorney Brian T. Kelly. As a former federal prosecutor, Kelly won racketeering and murder convictions against the notorious Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger.
After the judge had rejected probation early in the hearing, Kelly asked him to sentence Tobin to house arrest instead.
“It’s a terrible message to say you can cooperate with the government for hours and hours and you’re still going to jail,” Kelly said.