The founder of a California venture capital firm was sentenced to six months in prison on Wednesday for paying more than $ 400,000 in a college admission cheat scheme to boost his daughters’ test scores and get one be falsely admitted to college as a tennis recruit.
Manuel Henríquez, who founded Hercules Capital, said in a letter to the judge that he was embarrassed and acknowledged that what he did was “wrong, illegal, unfair and hurtful, especially for the many honest college students and parents.”
Henríquez and his wife, Elizabeth Henríquez, were accused of paying the money to have their daughters’ SAT tests corrected to increase their scores and for one of the daughters to be admitted to Georgetown University as an alleged tennis recruit, although she did not play competitively.
“There is no perfect way to express how broken I feel in my heart and soul,” Manuel Henríquez said in a video conference hearing, according to The Associated Press.
Henriquez pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services and mail fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
His wife, who also pleaded guilty, was sentenced to seven months in prison in March.
Prosecutors acknowledged in court documents that Henríquez “was a less active participant in the mechanics of fraud than his wife.”
They were among more than 50 people accused in the plan devised by William “Rick” Singer, authorities said.
The widespread scandal uncovered in an FBI investigation called “Operation Varsity Blues” involved wealthy parents who were paying to have their children’s test scores fraudulently increased or to be admitted to universities as suspected athletes.
In court documents, Henríquez’s attorneys said he was fully aware that there were pitfalls with his daughters’ entrance exams, but that he believed the $ 400,000 paid to Singer’s simulated charity would be donated to the tennis program at Georgetown and underprivileged youth.
Assistant United States Attorney Eric Rosen said he “strains credulity” that Henríquez would believe him and accused him of refusing to fully accept responsibility for his actions and trying to present a “disinfected version of the conduct to the court.”
After the couple’s daughter was admitted to Georgetown, Singer made payments to the then-school tennis coach Gordon Ernst, according to the United States Attorney’s office.
Ernst was charged and pleaded not guilty after being charged with pocketing $ 2.7 million in bribes. He had left Georgetown before criminal charges were filed and after an internal school investigation questioned his recruits, the university said.
Singer pleaded guilty and used a cable for the FBI. Actor Felicity Huffman was charged, pleaded guilty, and served 11 days of a 14-day sentence. Actor Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded guilty but have not been convicted.
In his letter to the judge, Henríquez wrote: “I am ashamed of my actions to put myself and my family over all the children and parents who followed the rules.” He asked other parents and their children to forgive him.
He portrayed his family as destroyed by the actions of him and his wife: their children’s lives were uprooted, their mental health was affected, and their mother went to prison. He said his marriage is on the verge of collapse.
Henríquez resigned as President and CEO of Hercules Capital in March 2019 after the charges were announced. He wrote in the letter that the loss of the company “was like losing my third child, and I lost him along with my reputation and professional integrity.”
The Associated Press contributed
