Woman awaiting sentencing in Varsity Blues case goes on Disney cruise to Mexico; judge will determine whether she violated release terms

Heinel was one of dozens of people charged in connection with the scheme, in which wealthy parents paid bribes to admitted mastermind William “Rick” Singer to get their children falsely designated as athletic recruits at selective colleges, thereby paving their way to admission, prosecutors have said.
Donna Heinel, who pleaded guilty last year to honest services wire fraud in connection with the case, is slated to appear in US District Court in Boston via video conference at 2:30 p.m., records show.
A former USC athletics official awaiting sentencing in the Varsity Blues college admissions cheating scandal will go before a judge Thursday in Boston after she allegedly violated the terms of her supervised release by taking a family Disney cruise to three Mexican ports, legal filings show.
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Heinel, former senior associate athletic director at USC, was placed on pre-trial release in 2019 with conditions including restricting her travel to the US, court papers said.
For well over three years, her lawyer Nina Marino wrote in an affidavit, Heinel had not been cited for “a single violation of her conditions of pretrial release,” but then on Nov. 23 she received a summons to appear in Boston for a hearing on the cruise violation.
“The violation is due to Dr. Heinel going on a Disney cruise with her wife and children without prior approval,” Marino wrote. “The cruise is to 3 ports in Mexico.”
When pretrial services contacted Heinel on Nov. 22, Marino wrote, she was “immediately reachable and provided her itinerary” to authorities. Marino said that when Heinel learned the cruise would be headed to Mexico, she asked Disney if that meant she’d be leaving the United States – a violation of her release.
“She was informed that if she did not disembark, she would not be leaving the United States,” Marino wrote. “She was further informed that she would not need a passport if she did not intend to disembark.”
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Also on Nov. 22, Marino spoke by phone with Heinel’s probation officer, Martha Victoria.
“Ms. Victoria told me that ‘people don’t realize that being on international waters is being outside of the country,’” Marino wrote. “Ms. Victoria also told me she was ‘kind of surprised’ because Dr. Heinel has been in ‘full compliance,’ including notifying [pre-trial services] of her home move, and there have been no other issues.”
But now there’s an issue over the cruise, which Marino said was “presented to Dr. Heinel by her wife as a family getaway for the children” for Thanksgiving. Heinel, Marino wrote, didn’t deliberately violate the terms of her supervised release.
“She inadvertently did so,” Marino wrote. “Dr. Heinel has the utmost respect for the Court and did not violate her conditions of release as a sign of disrespect.”
Marino said the mix-up was her fault, not Heinel’s.
“I did not advise Dr. Heinel that she needed prior approval from [pre-trial services] to make this travel as I was mistakenly operating under the belief that her unrestricted United States travel controlled,” Marino wrote. “I was clearly incorrect. For this, I apologize to the Court.”
An indictment filed against Heinel said Singer bribed her and others “to designate students as recruited athletes,” even though the students weren’t qualified to play their purported sports at the collegiate level.
Heinel faces a maximum prison term of 20 years, records show. However, it’s rare for first-time offenders to get anything approaching the maximum sentence, and federal prosecutors contend her base offense level, a figure used for calculating sentencing recommendations, is 21 out of 43, per legal filings.
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Prosecutors said in a written plea agreement that Heinel’s offense level increased 14 points since “the gain that resulted from the offense was more than $550,000 but not more than $1,500,000.”
Sentencing is slated for March 11.
All told, more than 40 defendants pleaded guilty in connection with the probe, including Singer, Tinsel Town icons Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, former PIMCO boss Douglas Hodge, and Hot Pockets heiress Michelle Janavs.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report. This story will be updated when more information becomes available.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.