A former Yale football coach and a Greenwich businessman charged in the university admissions scandal

The former Yale University women's football coach was charged with a national corruption scandal, in which he allegedly solicited and accepted bribes to nominate candidates as his team's recruits.

Rudolph "Rudy" Meredith of Madison, who coached at Yale from 1995 to November 2018, according to documents filed in the US District Court in Boston, is accused of collaborating with a counseling and preparation service. A California-based university that would have helped students cheat their SATs and ACTs or their college-educated paid coaches to recruit students for their teams, regardless of their abilities. He was charged with two counts of wire fraud.

TV actors Felicity Huffman, who starred in "Desperate Housewives" from 2004 to 2012, and Lori Loughlin, who was in "Full House" and "90210", as well as corporate executives, were among the 50 people arrested for cheating. scam, according to court records.

Meredith was one of 50 people accused of what US attorney Andrew Lelling, at a press conference held in Boston on Tuesday, called "the biggest scam on college admissions ever pursued by the department." of Justice". The conspiracy consisted of "college entrance exam fraud" and "getting admission to elite colleges by bribing coaches from those schools to accept some students under false pretexts, "he said.

The charges, which were unsealed on Tuesday, revealed that Meredith had been arrested for "conceiving and attempting to plot a scheme and fraudulent scheme", as well as for obtaining money and property, such as a admission to Yale University, through false and fraudulent claims. , representations and promises, and to deprive its employer, Yale University, of its right to honest and faithful services in the form of bribes and kickbacks. He was sentenced to lose $ 866,000.

In early 2015, Meredith allegedly conspired with William Rick Singer, owner of Edge College & Career Network LLC, also known as "The Key", "to accept bribes in exchange for nominating Yale candidates as recruits for Yale's women's football team, and thus facilitating their admission to the university, in violation of the duty of honest service that he owed to Yale as an employer, declare the accusations.

Singer was also managing director of the Key Worldwide Foundation, a non-profit corporation that he had created around 2012, according to court documents. Singer pleaded guilty in a federal court in Boston on Tuesday for charges of racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

According to the court documents, "the head coach of Yale Women's Football" was a witness who cooperated with the case since April 2018 "in the hope of obtaining clemency when sentenced". According to the documents, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy.

Singer and a former USC women's football coach reportedly worked together in 2017 to help the student enter Yale. A false sports profile created for the student stated that she played competitive football and was part of China's National Junior Development Team.

"Down and disturbed"

Yale's president, Peter Salovey, said in a letter to the university community that he was "deeply dismayed and disturbed" by the scandal. "As stated in the indictment, the Justice Department believes that Yale was a victim of a crime committed by a former coach who no longer works at the university," he said. Salovey writes.

"We do not believe that any member of Yale's administration or a staff member other than the implicated coach is aware of the conspiracy. The university has fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case progresses, "he wrote. Salovey said that he would work with the Sports Director and the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions to see if any other changes needed to be made to the admissions and recruitment process.

Federal Government Complaint against Rudolph Meredith by Helen Bennett on Scribd

"The corrupt behavior alleged by the Department of Justice is an affront to the deeply entrenched values ​​of our university, namely inclusion and fairness. I want to assure our community that I am committed to ensuring that the integrity of the admission and athlete recruitment process is no longer compromised. "

Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy said in a statement: "As the indictment clearly indicates, the Justice Department believes that Yale has been a victim of". a crime committed by his former female football coach.The university has fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to cooperate as the case proceeds. "

Lelling described the accused parents in this project as a "catalog of riches and privileges". Other colleges that Singer has attempted to have children accept from his clients include the Universities of Georgetown, Stanford and Wake Forest, UCLA, the University of San Diego and the University of Southern California . and the University of Texas at Austin. Huffman and others face up to 20 years in prison.

"The case is about expanding the corruption of admissions to elite colleges through the regular use of wealth, associated with fraud," said US lawyer Lelling at the press conference. "There can not be a separate system of admission to colleges for the rich and I will add that there will also be no separate criminal justice system."

Prosecutors say the parents paid Singer between $ 200,000 and $ 6.5 million, for a total of $ 25 million, from 2011 to February 2019, to increase their children's chances of getting into school. elite universities. They even went so far as to submit falsified photographs showing their children playing a sport they did not participate in.

Ernestina Hsieh, a freshman at Yale, was surprised to learn the scandal. "I did not think that such things were happening outside the movies," she said.

Two sophomores, who asked to remain anonymous, were also surprised, to varying degrees. "I was shocked when I read the title," said one of them.

The other, while aware of the money that goes through the admission process, nevertheless said that he "did not really think it would be that big."

Request bribe in a hotel room

One of the alleged candidates recruited by Meredith would have been "falsely qualified" as "co-captain of a major club football team in Southern California". After the student's admission to Yale on January 1, 2018, "Singer sent Meredith a check for an amount equal to $ 400,000, drawn on one of the charity's accounts. "The KWF," the charges say, and later, Singer's parents paid Singer about $ 1.2 million through one of his non-profit organization's accounts, which Lelling said Meredith had accepted. applicant "as a rookie of Yale's women's team, knowing that the applicant did not even play competitive football".

The charges also indicate that Meredith personally met the father of another California petitioner in a hotel room in Boston and asked him for a bribe totaling $ 450,000. The meeting, which was registered by the FBI, included an initial payment of $ 2,000 from the father. On or around April 18, 2018, Meredith received a payment of $ 4,000 by wire transfer "from a bank account in Boston, Massachusetts, which, unbeknownst to him, was under the control of agents of the FBI, "says the document.

The sports department of Yale University announced in November that Meredith had resigned as head coach of women's football. Meredith has been a three – time coach of the year in the Northeast region. The team reached the NCAA College Cup, the national tournament, in 2002, 2004 and 2005, reaching the third round for the first time in the history of the school in 2005. They have ended the season. ranked 13th in the NSCAA / Adidas National Poll, according to the Yale Athletics website, yalebulldogs.com.

When he resigned in November, Meredith said, "After 24 years leading the women's football program, it's time to explore new possibilities and start another chapter of my life. This is the right time to hand over the team to Yale's next women's football coach, who can guide the team into the future, "says the website.

Given Meredith's reputation – the athletic site calls him "the most winning coach in Yale's history," Thomas Atlee, a sophomore at the university, felt sympathy for the athletes who have been trained by him. "I think it tarnishes the hard work of all the other members of this team," he said.

Meredith could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Paul Thomas of Duffy Law in New Haven, did not return the messages to him.

Atlee also said that he thought the scandal would spur the debate on sports admissions to Yale and fears that he would cast "an ugly shadow" on sports admissions. Atlee hopes, however, that public opinion will eventually resist the scandal, which reflects the actions of an individual rather than the entire sports community of the university.

"I think it's a huge shame," he said. "Admissions will likely take coaching suggestions with caution … Campus culture will likely suffer."

Although not being an athlete himself, Atlee was convinced by arguments in favor of sports recruitment. "Athletics is an important part of campus life and culture," he said, adding that he was contributing to the diversification of the student body.

Gordon Caplan of Greenwich, co-chair of the New York-based international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher and the 2018 dealmaker of the American Lawyer's year, have also been named in the case, according to the Connecticut Law Tribune.

At the end of 2018, Caplan participated in the cheating scandal of a college entrance exam by donating $ 75,000 to the Key Worldwide Foundation, in exchange for coaches awarding the his daughter and the correction made, the state documented by the court.

Singer was a resident of Sacramento and Newport Beach, California, says the indictment.

Jim Shay and the Associated Press contributed to this story. [email protected]; 203-680-9382.