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McGlashan, Others Face More Charges in College Admissions Scandal
A group of 16 parents who were previously charged have been indicted again for allegedly laundering bribes and other payments.
More charges have been brought against former TPG manager Bill McGlashan and 15 of his co-defendants in the college admissions cheating scandal, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced Tuesday.
The group has been charged with conspiring to commit fraud and money laundering related to “a scheme to use bribery to cheat on college entrance exams and to facilitate their children’s admission to selective colleges and universities as purported athletic recruits,” the government alleged in the new indictment, released Tuesday. This second indictment supersedes the charges brought against the group in March, according to the announcement.
The new indictment alleges that the group laundered the bribes and other payments by funneling them through “purported charitable donations” and by transferring money into the United States from abroad “to promote their fraud scheme.”
“The prosecutor’s case against Mr. McGlashan is deeply flawed and ignores important exculpatory facts,” John Hueston, McGlashan’s attorney, founding partner of law firm Hueston Hennigan, said via email. “We look forward to presenting his side of the story.”
According to the indictment, the group allegedly conspired with William Rick Singer, who owned a college prep company, to bribe SAT and ACT test administrators to either take the exams for their children or to correct the answers on the exams after the children had taken them. The indictment also stated that the group allegedly bribed university athletic coaches and administrators to ensure that their children were accepted to the schools as athletic recruits, regardless of whether they played the sport.
According to the indictment, McGlashan allegedly agreed to pay Singer $50,000 to arrange for someone to proctor his son’s ACT exam, and then to secretly correct the answers.
Prior to the exam, McGlashan allegedly contributed $50,000 to Singer’s charity, the Key Worldwide Foundation, from his own personal charitable donation fund, the indictment said. The exam proctor then allegedly received a $35,000 payment from Key Worldwide Foundation, according to the indictment.
Those scores were eventually allegedly submitted as a part of his son’s applications to schools including Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, the indictment said.
McGlashan also allegedly was a part of the athletic recruitment scheme, working with Singer to create a fake football profile for his son, the indictment said.
In court documents previously filed to Judge M. Page Kelley in Boston, McGlashan said that his son, 18, was diagnosed by a pediatric neuropsychologist with certain learning disabilities when he was in eighth grade. He also said that his son has withdrawn his college applications.
TPG said in March that it fired McGlashan, who founded TPG’s Growth Fund and The Rise Fund, over the allegations. At the time, McGlashan contested that he resigned before he could be fired.
[II Deep Dive: Bill McGlashan Out at TPG Following College Admissions Cheating Allegations]
McGlashan, along with Manuel Henriquez, former chief executive officer of Hercules Capital; John Wilson, CEO and president of Hyannis Port Capital; Robert Zangrillo, founder and CEO of venture capital firm Dragon Global; and Douglas Hodge, former CEO of PIMCO were among the others named in the new indictment on Tuesday.
Gordon Caplan, the former co-chairman and partner in Wilkie Farr & Gallagher's private equity practice who was charged initially in March, agreed to plead guilty on March 27, court documents show.