Silicon Valley Mom Gets Seven Months for $450,000 College Scam

(Bloomberg) -- A Silicon Valley mom who paid $450,000 to cheat her daughters’ way into college was sentenced to seven months in prison after asking a federal judge to spare her a jail term during the pandemic.

Elizabeth Henriquez fits new U.S. Justice Department guidance that nonviolent first-time offenders with health conditions should serve their time at home during the outbreak of the highly contagious coronavirus, her lawyers argued in a hearing by video conference Tuesday. They asked U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston for five months’ home confinement for their 57-year-old client.

Gorton rejected home confinement and set June 30 for Henriquez to report to corrections authorities. He also fined her $200,000.

He cited an “obligation” as a federal judge to put Henriquez behind bars.

“You deserve a prison sentence for repeatedly and deliberately corrupting the college admissions system,” he told her, referring to an “inexcusable crime of greed” and “hubris.” But he said he was “moved by the remorse” Henriquez showed in a letter to him that said she felt “immense shame” for what she did.

Federal prosecutors had asked that Henriquez, of Atherton, California, be given two years and two months behind bars as one of the “most culpable” of 36 parents charged in an admissions scandal that snared top executives and coaches at elite universities across the U.S. She participated in both parts of the plot -- bribing a college sports coach and cheating on entrance exams -- and was heard gloating with her daughter about gaming the SAT subject tests, the U.S. said.

Prosecutors said home confinement was unacceptable and asked instead that Gorton delay the start of Henriquez’s sentence until the pandemic is over. On Tuesday, the judge said he would consider that.

The stiffest sentence for a parent yet has been nine months for Douglas Hodge, the former Pimco chief.

In asking Gorton for leniency before he pronounced the sentence, Henriquez’s attorney, Aaron Katz, said his client’s crimes were motivated by a misguided desire “to protect her daughters from failure.” He said Henriquez cannot safely be incarcerated and referred to health issues but declined to describe them in court. Specifics are filed under seal.

Read More: Mom in College Scam Asks for Home Confinement for Fear of Virus

Even when the pandemic abates, the federal prison system may pose a higher risk of infection, Katz told the judge.

“Elizabeth is not a movie star,” he said. “She is not a titan of industry. She is not an heiress. She is a mother who stands before you broken and scared. She is pleading for your mercy.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Rosen told Gorton the first instance in which Henriquez facilitated cheating on college entrance exams was at her daughter’s own high school in 2015. He said Henriquez lied to administrators to bring a corrupt test proctor into the school.

“This is a long-term scheme where fraud replaced truth,” Rosen said.

Henriquez and her husband, Manuel Henriquez, the former chief executive officer of the venture capital firm Hercules Capital Inc., admitted last year to paying a $400,000 bribe to Gordon Ernst, then Georgetown University’s head tennis coach, to designate their older daughter as a recruited athlete and set up fake athletic profiles for her. The couple paid another $50,000 to rig both daughters’ college entrance and subject exams.

Ernst has pleaded not guilty to racketeering.

The U.S. has asked for 18 months for Manuel Henriquez, whose sentencing is set for April 8.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.