A former Yale women’s soccer coach pleaded guilty Thursday to pocketing $400,000 to recruit an unqualified athlete to the Ivy League college as part of a nationwide admissions scam that also snared actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin.
Rudy Meredith, 51, also admitted soliciting a $450,000 bribe from an FBI informant who helped the feds blow the lid on the long-running scheme.
He faces 20 years in prison on conspiracy and fraud charges, but is hoping to score leniency by cooperating with the feds.
During an appearance in Boston federal court, Meredith told the judge that he admitted all the allegations against him after a prosecutor read aloud an 11-page information against him.
Judge Mark Wolf didn’t make the disgraced coach describe his crimes in his own words, but noted during the hearing that he graduated from Yale in 1968 and “make, by Yale’s standards, modest contributions” to the elite institution.
“I considered whether I have any bias or prejudice, and I don’t,” Wolf said.
As he attempted to leave the courthouse, Meredith was confronted by a horde of journalists and photographers and retreated back inside.
Court security officers then escorted him out to a waiting blue Honda Accord.
Neither Meredith nor his lawyer would comment.
Court papers say Meredith schemed with admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer to help an unidentified student win admission to Yale in 2017 by claiming she was co-captain of a “prominent club soccer team in southern California” — even though she didn’t play the game competitively.
Yale has said it “rescinded” the young woman’s admission when it learned of the fraud, making her the first known college student to get booted as a result of the feds’ “Operation Varsity Blues” probe.
Meredith also accepted $2,000 in cash and another $4,000 wire payment after agreeing in April 2018 to help the father of another applicant get his kid into Yale.
But those payments were made as part of a sting operation which the Wall Street Journal has said was mounted by the FBI based on information provided by the dad, Morrie Tobin, in exchange for leniency in a “pump-and-dump” stock fraud scam.
Fifteen of the 33 parents busted in the alleged scheme are due in court in Boston on Friday.
Huffman and Loughlin are scheduled to appear in court next week.
