Former Georgetown coach handed harshest sentence but in faculty admissions scandal

A former tennis coach at Georgetown College was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in jail for his function within the faculty admissions scandal, marking the harshest sentence up to now in "Operation Varsity Blues."

Gordon Ernst pleaded responsible to conspiracy and bribery expenses in October 2021, admitting he accepted almost $3.5 million over the course of 10 years in alternate for recruiting the youngsters of rich mother and father. Of the six spots Ernst was tasked to fill annually, the coach would give at the very least two, and in some instances 5, to the youngsters regardless of them missing the athletic means required for placement on the Georgetown tennis group, in line with prosecutors.

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"I am most ashamed that I did not observe what I used to be preaching to them," Ernst testified in courtroom.

Greater than 54 mother and father have pleaded responsible in relation to Operation Varsity Blues, a scandal that arose after it was found a number of rich mother and father, reminiscent of celebrities Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, had bribed faculty recruiters to confess their kids to selective colleges.

Ernst turned the pinnacle coach for the boys’s and girls’s tennis groups in 2006, which is when he was launched to admissions marketing consultant Rick Singer, the mastermind behind the bribery scheme, he testified. Throughout his tenure, Ernst provided spots on the group to almost two dozen college students, in line with Assistant U.S. Lawyer Kristen Kearney.

Not like a number of of the opposite convicted coaches, who had been bribed within the type of cash for his or her sports activities packages, Ernst pocketed all the cash he bought for himself and spent it to pay for his daughters’ personal education and to buy a house in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, prosecutors mentioned.

Along with his jail sentence, Ernst should spend six years in dwelling confinement and should pay a nice of $3.43 million, in line with Reuters.