New charges against R.I. tennis great

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday significantly escalated their case against Rhode Island hockey and tennis legend Gordie Ernst in the nationwide college admissions bribery scandal.

Ernst, originally indicted in March on a single count of racketeering conspiracy, now faces charges of bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, honest services fraud, money laundering, federal programs bribery and conspiracy.

Boston-based federal prosecutors said Ernst accepted $2.7 million in bribes to get rich parents’ kids into his tennis program at Georgetown University, even when they didn’t have much or any tennis ability to speak of.

The new indictment in Massachusetts federal court alleges a similar pattern, but says it started longer ago — 2007, instead of 2012 — and increases the number and types of charges Ernst faces.

Among the new allegations: money laundering. Federal prosecutors said Ernst used ill-gotten gains to buy a home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, where he also allegedly received bribe money in the mail. He should have to forfeit that house to the government, prosecutors said.

Ernst was fired after Georgetown discovered discrepancies between his recruits’ applications and their actual tennis abilities. He was hired to coach the University of Rhode Island women’s tennis program after his departure from Georgetown, but before he was criminally charged.

A Providence Journal investigation earlier this year found that URI missed red flags from Ernst's previous job, such as the fact that he had been on leave from his coaching job at Georgetown. It also found that Ernst was not forthright with URI about the circumstances of his departure from Georgetown.

Ernst, who grew up in Cranston, was one of several coaches or university officials to be charged; after Tuesday’s indictment, he is yet again at the center of the national scandal known as “Varsity Blues.” He is accused of taking more money than other coaches and administrators, and faces more types of charges, including money laundering, than any other defendant named in Tuesday’s indictment.

He pleaded not guilty to the original indictment. Ernst resigned from his job at URI after he was originally charged. None of the allegations in either indictment allege that Ernst committed crimes while at URI.

A naturally gifted athlete and fierce competitor, Ernst romped through Rhode Island’s high school tennis competition in the 1980s, never even losing a set, much less a match. Opponents still speak of being so overpowered by Ernst that they felt like they might as well have been playing a brick wall.

The Cranston East graduate also excelled at hockey, and played at Brown University before being drafted by an NHL team. He did not end up playing in the league, or making significant headway as a professional tennis player, instead branching out into coaching at universities.

By March 2019, the man who was once Rhode Island’s golden boy became a poster child for the college admissions scandal that resulted in charges against dozens of rich parents, coaches and administrators around the country.

Ernst, now of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was the coach most closely tied to mastermind Rick Singer’s sham charity, listed as receiving hundreds of thousands in consulting fees. Those were actually bribes funneled through the Key Worldwide Foundation, prosecutors said.

A separate indictment also handed up Tuesday names parents, including the actress Lori Loughlin. The scheme had various components, prosecutors said, including cheating on standardized tests using a smart person to take tests for kids in exchange for money.

Several figures in the scandal, including actress Felicity Huffman, have pleaded guilty. Huffman got 14 days in prison. According to the legal publication Law360, parents who have pleaded guilty said they were promised no new charges.

Last week Ernst asked a judge to dismiss the case, joining other defendants’ legal arguments about what needs to be alleged to charge racketeering and conspiracy.

bamaral@providencejournal.com

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