Ex-Yale coach to plead guilty in admissions scandal: report

Yale University’s former head coach of women’s soccer will plead guilty to accepting bribes to help wealthy parents get their children into the school, Reuters reports.

Rudolph Meredith will plead guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud charges in federal court in Boston, the third guilty plea connected with the massive bribery scandal, the news service reports.

{mosads}According to the Justice Department, college admissions counseling service operator Rick Singer led a scheme in which several coaches, including Meredith, accepted $25 million in bribes to help parents fabricate athletic activity by their children in order to secure spots at colleges and universities.

Singer, who pleaded guilty on March 12, also says he helped applicants cheat on entrance exams.

Federal investigators claim that, beginning in 2015, Meredith made an arrangement with Singer to designate applicants as recruits to Yale’s women’s soccer team in exchange for bribes, accepting $400,000 in 2017 from the daughter of a Los Angeles financial adviser who did not, in fact, play competitive soccer. Singer sent Meredith a fake profile claiming the student was co-captain of a California soccer team, according to Reuters.

The university has also rescinded the admission of an unnamed student whose parents paid Singer $1.2 million to get her into the university as a fraudulent soccer prospect. Singer paid Meredith $400,000 after the student was admitted. Yale did not release any further information about the student in question and it remains unclear whether it was the same student that Meredith was paid for.

Meredith resigned from his coaching position and began cooperating with the FBI last November. So far, more than 50 people, including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, have been indicted in connection with the scheme, and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced the department will investigate the colleges involved.

Yale announced Tuesday that it will tighten its athletic recruiting process, according to the Hartford Courant. Athletic director Victoria Chun will now review all proposed recruits before referral to the admissions office, and will co-author a new code of conduct for recruitment with Jeremiah Quinlan, the school’s dean of undergraduate admissions.  

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.