A Georgetown University father implicated in the national college admissions cheating scandal was sentenced to four months in prison on Thursday in federal court in Boston, prosecutors announced. Stephen Semprevivo, the father of former Georgetown senior Adam Semprevivo, pleaded guilty to fraud charges earlier this year.
Semprevivo was also sentenced to two years of supervised release, 500 hours of community service, and a fine of $100,000. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 18 months in prison.
Semprevivo admitted in federal court this May that he paid $400,000 to a sham charity set up by a “consultant” named William Singer in exchange for help getting his son admitted to the elite college as a tennis recruit, despite the fact that the younger Semprevivo did not play competitive tennis.
The deal was just one of dozens made by Singer across the country with wealthy parents apparently afflicted with anxiety that their children might not receive admission to competitive universities. In March, federal investigators announced they were indicting dozens of wealthy—and in some cases famous—parents, university athletic coaches, college administrators, standardized test proctors, and others who were allegedly involved in bribery schemes designed to gain children admission to elite colleges through what Singer called a “side door” in court filings.
When news of the scandal broke, at least two students at Georgetown and their parents were allegedly involved (athletic recruits at elite colleges often have drastically lower admissions criteria in other areas, like test scores and high school grade point average). Prosecutors have accused Georgetown’s tennis coach at the time, Gordon Ernst, of accepting bribes from Singer to get students admitted to the school as recruits in the tennis program. Ernst allegedly accepted $2.7 million from Singer between 2012 and 2018 to admit 12 students in this way. Prosecutors have called Ernst “the most prolific” of all the coaches involved in the scandal, per Bloomberg, and accused him of taking bribes from parents independently of Singer as far back as 2007. Ernst has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Georgetown put Ernst on leave in December 2017 after discovering “irregularities in the athletic credentials of students who were being recruited to play tennis,” but recommended him for another coaching gig at the University of Rhode Island, anyway.
In May, Georgetown announced it would expel two students as a result of the scandal. One of those students was Adam Semprevivo, who filed a lawsuit against Georgetown to protest his dismissal, then later dropped it. The younger Semprevivo began attending Georgetown in 2016, and never played on the tennis team. He has said in court filings that he had no knowledge of what his father was doing on his behalf, though he sent emails to Ernst at the direction of Singer listing numerous tennis accomplishments and ambitions that he did not possess.
Semprevivo is the third parent to be sentenced in a group of 15 who have pleaded guilty. Actress Felicity Huffman and businessman Devin Sloane have already been sentenced, and received two weeks and four months of incarceration, respectively.
Actress Lori Laughlin is among the 19 parents who did not plead guilty, and whose cases may go to trial.
Natalie Delgadillo