A former Georgetown University 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 $3 million in bribes in alternate for serving to rich dad and mom cheat their youngsters’ method into the college.
The sentence for Gordon Ernst is by far the toughest punishment handed down to this point in the sprawling college admissions bribery scandal that shined a lightweight on the lengths some wealthy dad and mom will go to get their youngsters into the nation’s most selective colleges.
Prosecutors had sought 4 years behind bars for Ernst, 55, who admitted to accepting practically $3.5 million in bribes over a decade to designate the youngsters of deep-pocketed dad and mom as recruits although they weren’t Georgetown-caliber gamers.
Ernst advised the choose 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 correct decisions.
“I’m most ashamed that I didn’t follow what I was preaching to them,” he mentioned.
In a letter to the choose, 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 told The Boston Globe that her husband was by no means abusive.
Ernst performed hockey and tennis at Brown University in Providence earlier than getting teaching jobs at Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania. He was supplied the top women and men’s tennis coach job at Georgetown in 2006 and was launched by a pal two years later to admissions guide Rick Singer, the mastermind of the bribery scheme, Ernst advised the choose.
Of the six spots Ernst acquired yearly to recruit tennis gamers, he commonly gave at the very least two — and sometimes up to 5 — to unqualified college students in alternate for bribes, in accordance to prosecutors. Over the years, he helped practically two dozen college students fraudulently get into the college, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen Kearney advised the choose.
And in contrast to a number of the different coaches charged in the case who have been bribed in the type of cash for his or her sports activities applications, Ernst pocketed nearly the entire 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.
Defense attorneys requested the choose for a sentence of a couple of yr, saying in court docket papers that Ernst, just like the tragic Greek mythological determine Icarus, “flew too close to the sun and forgot his wings were made of wax.”
Surrounded by households with wealth and status at Georgetown, Ernst — whose beginning wage was $55,000 — advised himself he wasn’t hurting anybody or his staff by accepting the bribes, his attorneys wrote.
Ernst has tried to flip his life round since his 2019 arrest and has labored half time as a tennis teacher, hockey referee, and a rental automotive cleaner, Ernst’s attorneys mentioned.
“Gordie has fallen from the White House to the tabloids – a fall from grace far longer than the Court sees in a typical case,” his attorneys wrote.
U.S. District Judge 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 seen because the measure of success.
Ernst left Georgetown in 2018 after an inside investigation launched over what the college described as “irregularities in the athletic credentials” of scholars he was recruiting concluded that he violated admissions guidelines.
He was later employed by the University of Rhode Island, which claimed it wasn’t advised in regards to the admissions guidelines violations. He resigned from that faculty shortly after his arrest.
Ernst is amongst 54 individuals who have been convicted in 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. Another defendant was pardoned by former President Donald Trump and a 3rd defendant acquired a deal that is anticipated to lead to the dismissal of his case.
Before Friday, the toughest punishment had been 15 months in jail for John Wilson, a former Staples Inc. govt convicted by jurors of paying $220,000 to have his son designated as a University of Southern California water polo recruit and an extra $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.
Only a handful of defendants stay to be sentenced.
They embrace the scheme’s mastermind, Singer, who pleaded responsible in 2019 to a slew of costs. Singer secretly started cooperating with investigators earlier than the case grew to become public and helped the federal government construct the huge prosecution. He’s anticipated to be sentenced in September.
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