California Tech Executive Pleads Guilty in College Scandal
California Tech Executive Pleads Guilty in College Scandal
(Bloomberg) -- Peter Dameris, a 60-year-old California tech executive, pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge for paying $300,000 in bribes to get his son into Georgetown University as a phony tennis recruit.
Federal prosecutors announced Dameris’s plea agreement on May 22, the day “Full House” star Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, gave up a yearlong fight and pleaded guilty themselves.
“Do you accept responsibility for what is alleged?” U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns asked Dameris by videoconference on Tuesday.
“I do, your honor,” he replied.
The plea agreement calls for a sentence of time served and 21 months of home confinement for the Pacific Palisades resident, “due to serious medical conditions involving defendant’s close family members,” plus a $95,000 fine. Sentencing was set for Oct. 5.
Richard Crane, a lawyer for Dameris, didn’t immediately respond to a call and email seeking comment on the plea.
Dameris, the former chief executive officer of information technology company ASGN Inc., was the 25th parent to agree to plead guilty and was followed a few days later by Robert Repella, the former CEO of Harmony Bioscience LLC. Repella was charged with paying a bribe of more than $50,000 to get his daughter into Georgetown. The two come more than a year after prosecutors announced the sprawling case in March 2019.
More than 50 people have been charged in the scandal. Of the 38 parents, including Repella and Dameris, 26 have admitted guilt. Their sentences have ranged from two weeks for actor Felicity Huffman to nine months for former Pimco CEO Douglas Hodge. None of the students or schools in the case, from the University of Southern California to Georgetown to Yale, were charged.
The new rash of plea agreements still leaves a dozen parents facing trial. The first trial, which was to include Loughlin and Giannulli, was scheduled to start Oct. 5, subject to the court’s reopening. The second, beginning Jan. 11, includes private equity executive Bill McGlashan.
The case is U.S. v. Sidoo, 19-cr-10080, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).
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