Elizabeth Henriquez college admissions scandal. Atherton, Bay Area, California mom sentenced 7 months jail in Varsity Blues scandal after paying $500K to place daughter at Georgetown University.
You shall not pass go. Go directly to jail….
A well-heeled Bay Area, California mother who ‘gloated’ with her daughter after cheating her child’s way into Georgetown University has been sentenced to prison — despite asking a federal judge to serve it as home detention because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Elizabeth Henriquez, 57, was sentenced to seven months jail Monday after conspiring to pay more than $500,000 to scam her two children into elite colleges — part of the sweeping ‘Varsity Blues’ admissions scandal . The scandal that rocked the colleges admissions process has since exposed how some rich students make it into top tier schools at the expense of often more qualifying students.
The mother’s sentencing follows Henriquez pleading guilty in October, last year alongside her husband, Manuel, to conspiring to commit fraud and money laundering with William “Rick” Singer, the Newport Beach consultant at the center of the college admissions scandal – the latimes reports.
Leading into sentencing, Henriquez last week filed a sentencing memorandum requesting to serve out her forthcoming sentence in home confinement, citing the COVID-19 health crisis, the Boston Herald reported.
But federal prosecutors on Monday pushed for prison time arguing that Henriquez was a fully engaged participant in the scam, which involved getting her eldest daughter designated a fake athletic recruit to Georgetown.
‘Henriquez also knew that the payment was not legitimate because she knew that her daughter was not a Division 1 caliber tennis player, and that her credentials were being falsified so that Ernst could credibly allocate one of his walk-on spots to her in exchange for the money,’ prosecutors wrote.
US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton rejected her request for home confinement but delayed the start of her sentencing date until June 30, according to Bloomberg News.
Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, who charged the Henriquezes and 51 others in Singer’s scheme, had asked Gorton to send Elizabeth Henriquez to prison for 26 months — the longest sentence they’d requested in the case to date.
Gloating towards a better future:
Henriquez, from the wealthy town of Atherton had begun scheming with the scandal’s mastermind, William ‘Rick’ Singer, back in 2015 to pay off a corrupt SAT proctor who sat side-by-side with her daughter as the two doctored test answers.
On five occasions, Henriquez conceded Singer’s accomplices fed her two daughters the answers to their SAT and ACT exams while pretending to proctor the tests.
As part of the scam, her daughter, Isabelle, also applied to Georgetown as a ‘top 50 ranking’ tennis recruit in the United States — even though she hadn’t played tennis competitively in years. Yes kids, it’s as obvious as that.
‘At her best, she appears to have ranked 207th in Northern California in the under-12 girls division, with an overall win/loss record of 2-8,’ prosecutors wrote in the complaint.
Henriques and her husband admitted to also paying $400,000 towards a corrupt Georgetown tennis coach to endorse their older daughter as a talented tennis player, despite her fake credentials.
After Isabelle was successfully admitted, Henriquez tapped Singer to replicate the college exam cheating three more times before being busted by the feds.
Most students involved in the scandal were oblivious to their parents’ malfeasance, but Isabelle, her mother and the crooked proctor all gloated together after the brazen SAT rigging, according to a criminal complaint.
Henriquez pleaded guilty to federal fraud and money laundering charges last October. In addition to her jail time, she must also pay a $200,000 fine and conduct 300 hours of community service.
Getting ahead in America by any means possible until you get caught….
