Georgetown University’s former head tennis coach pleaded guilty to taking more than $3.4 million in bribes to designate at least 19 students phony athletic recruits as part of the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal.
Gordon Ernst on Monday admitted he solicited and received payments from the scheme’s admitted mastermind, William “Rick” Singer, and the parents of prospective Georgetown applicants between 2007 and 2018 at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston.
He pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy, bribery and filing a false tax return. Prosecutors in the office of acting Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Mendell said they’ll recommend Ernst, 54, serve as many as four years in prison. However, under the terms of the plea agreement, the former coach said he will ask the judge for a sentence of no more than a year.
Ernst, who also agreed to forfeit the millions he earned from the scheme, was one of 57 people charged in the case. So far, 46 people, including 33 parents, have pleaded guilty. Two parents were convicted at trial earlier this month. Ernst was to have been part of a group of former coaches and college officials scheduled to go on trial next month in federal court in Boston.
Singer, a college counselor, agreed to secretly cooperate with the U.S. and record his clients who were parents who paid him to get their kids into college as elite athletes or fixed their college board scores. He pleaded guilty in 2019 and awaits sentencing.
Ernst left Georgetown in 2018 after the school launched an investigation into Ernst’s recruiting practices and concluded he’d violated university rules.
