College admissions bribery scandal: Ex-coach sentenced

A former Georgetown College tennis coach who as soon as coached former President Barack Obama’s household was sentenced Friday to 2 1/2 years in jail for pocketing greater than US$3 million in bribes in change for serving to rich dad and mom cheat their youngsters’ approach into the varsity.

The sentence for Gordon Ernst is by far the hardest punishment handed down to this point within the sprawling faculty admissions bribery scandal that shined a light-weight on the lengths some wealthy dad and mom will go to get their youngsters into the nation’s most selective faculties.

Prosecutors had sought 4 years behind bars for Ernst, 55, who admitted to accepting practically US$3.5 million in bribes over a decade to designate the kids of deep-pocketed dad and mom as recruits despite the fact that they weren’t Georgetown-calibre gamers.

Ernst informed the decide in Boston’s federal court docket that he misplaced his ethical compass and acted out of line with what he taught his personal gamers about making the fitting decisions.

“I am most ashamed that I did not observe what I used to be preaching to them,” he mentioned.

In a letter to the decide, Ernst described rising up in Rhode Island with a demanding and bodily abusive father — one other Rhode Island tennis legend, the late Dick Ernst — whom he referred to as extra a “coach and tyrant than a dad.” Ernst’s mom informed The Boston Globe that her husband was by no means abusive.

Ernst performed hockey and tennis at Brown College in Windfall earlier than getting teaching jobs at Northwestern College and the College of Pennsylvania. He was supplied the top women and men’s tennis coach job at Georgetown in 2006 and was launched by a buddy two years later to admissions marketing consultant Rick Singer, the mastermind of the bribery scheme, Ernst informed the decide.

Of the six spots Ernst obtained yearly to recruit tennis gamers, he commonly gave at the very least two — and infrequently as much as 5 — to unqualified college students in change for bribes, based on prosecutors. Through the years, he helped practically two dozen college students fraudulently get into the varsity, Assistant U.S. Lawyer Kristen Kearney informed the decide.

And in contrast to a number of the different coaches charged within the case who had been bribed within the type of cash for his or her sports activities packages, Ernst pocketed nearly all the cash for himself, prosecutors mentioned. He used the bribe cash to pay for his daughters’ costly non-public faculty tuition and purchase a house on Cape Cod, Kearney mentioned.

Protection attorneys requested the decide for a sentence of a few yr, saying in court docket papers that Ernst, just like the tragic Greek mythological determine Icarus, “flew too near the solar and forgot his wings had been product of wax.”

Surrounded by households with wealth and status at Georgetown, Ernst — whose beginning wage was US$55,000 — informed himself he wasn’t hurting anybody or his staff by accepting the bribes, his attorneys wrote.

Ernst has tried to show his life round since his 2019 arrest and has labored half time as a tennis teacher, hockey referee, and a rental automobile cleaner, Ernst’s attorneys mentioned.

“Gordie has fallen from the White Home to the tabloids — a fall from grace far longer than the Courtroom sees in a typical case,” his attorneys wrote.

U.S. District Choose Indira Talwani referred to as Ernst’s actions “egregious,” and mentioned they appeared to stem from a want to painting himself as somebody with wealth as a result of that is what he considered because the measure of success.

Ernst left Georgetown in 2018 after an inside investigation launched over what the varsity described as “irregularities within the athletic credentials” of scholars he was recruiting concluded that he violated admissions guidelines.

He was later employed by the College of Rhode Island, which claimed it wasn’t informed in regards to the admissions guidelines violations. He resigned from that college shortly after his arrest.

Ernst is amongst 54 individuals who have been convicted within the Operation Varsity Blues case that exploded into headlines in March 2019.

The final defendant linked to the investigation to go to trial was acquitted by jurors on all counts final month. One other defendant was pardoned by former President Donald Trump and a 3rd defendant obtained a deal that is anticipated to result in the dismissal of his case.

Earlier than Friday, the hardest punishment had been 15 months in jail for John Wilson, a former Staples Inc. govt convicted by jurors of paying US$220,000 to have his son designated as a College of Southern California water polo recruit and a further US$1 million to purchase his twin daughters’ methods into Harvard and Stanford. Wilson maintains that he’s harmless and stays free whereas he appeals his case.

Solely a handful of defendants stay to be sentenced.

They embody the scheme’s mastermind, Singer, who pleaded responsible in 2019 to a slew of expenses. Singer secretly started cooperating with investigators earlier than the case turned public and helped the federal government construct the large prosecution. He is anticipated to be sentenced in September.