Parent Sentenced to Prison in College Admissions Case

BOSTON – A California woman was sentenced today for agreeing to pay more than $500,000 to participate in the college admissions scheme for her two children.

Elizabeth Henriquez, 57, of Atherton, Calif., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to seven months in prison, two years of supervised release and ordered to pay a fine of $200,000.  She was also ordered to conduct 300 hours of community service. Henriquez must self-surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on June 30, 2020.

In October 2019, Henriquez pleaded guilty to an indictment charging her with one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Beginning in 2015, Henriquez conspired with William “Rick” Singer and others to secure her children’s admission to selective colleges and universities through bribery and fraud. In June 2015, Henriquez paid Singer to have a corrupt proctor correct her older daughter’s answers on the SAT II subject tests.  In October 2015, Henriquez again paid Singer to have a third party correct her older daughter’s answer on the SAT exam.  Henriquez also pursued exam cheating through Singer on three additional occasions in 2016 and 2017, once in Houston, Texas and twice in Los Angeles, California.

Henriquez also paid Singer $400,000 to facilitate her daughter’s admission to Georgetown University as a purported tennis recruit, even though she did not play tennis competitively.  Henriquez understood that the payment, structured as a donation to Singer’s purported charitable organization, would be passed on to the university’s tennis program in exchange for the complicit coach’s agreement to recruit her daughter based on fabricated tennis credentials.  After Henriquez’s daughter was admitted to Georgetown, Singer instead paid a portion of the $400,000 to the tennis coach for his personal use.

Case information, including the status of each defendant, charging documents and plea agreements are available here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/investigations-college-admissions-and-testing-bribery-scheme.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Kristina O’Connell, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston, made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric S. Rosen, Justin D. O’Connell, Leslie A. Wright and Kristen A. Kearney of Lelling’s Securities and Financial Fraud Unit are prosecuting the cases.

The details contained in the court documents are allegations and the remaining defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.