Personal Tennis Coach for Obama Family Charged in College Admissions Scam!

Fox News has more on the story:

Ernst was at Georgetown from 2012 to 2017 and was the personal instructor of former first lady Michelle Obama and her daughters, Sasha and Malia, according to the Providence Journal. None of the Obamas are implicated in the scandal in any way.

Ernst allegedly accepted nearly $3 million in bribes and in return helped a dozen students get onto the Georgetown's tennis team, including kids who didn’t actually play the sport in a competitive fashion, according to the New York Post.

The scam was run by William Singer, who helped parents get their children’s college admissions through bribes, according to court documents. Singer, an admissions consulting company founder, pleaded guilty in Boston federal court to charges including racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

You can read the official unsealed indictment documents over at the Daily Mail, which has more details to report:

According to the unsealed indictment, between 2012 and 2018, during which time Ernst was the head coach of men's and women's tennis at Georgetown University, he received bribes totalling more than $2.7million, which was falsely labelled as 'consulting.'

In exchange for the payoffs, Ernst allegedly designated at least a dozen applicants as recruits for the Georgetown tennis team, including some who did not play competitively, in order to help them get into the university.

The money came from charitable accounts set up by the accused mastermind of the scheme, William Rick Singer, who founded the college consulting business Edge College & Career Network, also known as The Key, in Newport Beach, California.

Prosecutors said parents paid Singer about $25million to bribe coaches and administrators into pretending that their children were athletic recruits to guarantee their admission. 

In one instance, according to the documents, Ernst was allegedly paid $400,000 for getting the child of Singer's clients into Georgetown under the guise of tennis recruitment, even though the applicant did not play competitive tennis.

Between September 2015 and August 2016, Ernst allegedly received checks totalling $700,000.

Ernst worked at Georgetown for 12 years before resigning in June 2018. Two months later, he was named the University of Rhode Island’s women's tennis coach.