Lawyer to plead guilty in admissions scandal
A top lawyer with a major Manhattan law firm said Friday he will plead guilty in the college admissions bribery scandal and wants to apologize.
Gordon Caplan, 53, said in a statement he was “ashamed” of his actions and that his daughter, still in high school, had no knowledge of the scam.
The recently departed cochair of Willkie Farr & Gallagher on Seventh Ave. was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud along with 32 other parents in the largest college admissions cheating scandal ever prosecuted in the U.S.
“I take full and sole responsibility for my conduct and I am deeply ashamed of my behavior and my actions. I apologize not only to my family, friends, colleagues and the legal bar, but also to students everywhere who have been accepted to college through their own hard work,” Caplan said in his statement obtained by the Daily News.
“I want to make clear that my daughter, whom I love more than anything in the world, is a high school junior and has not yet applied to college, much less been accepted by any school. She had no knowledge whatsoever about my actions, has been devastated to learn what I did and has been hurt the most by it,” he said.
“My immediate goal is to focus on making amends for my actions to try to win back the trust and respect of my daughter, my family, and my community. The remorse and shame that I feel is more than I can convey,” Caplan said. “I intend to enter a guilty plea on the criminal charge brought against me in the Varsity Blues college admissions investigation and dedicate myself to trying to right this wrong.”
Federal officials say Caplan, who lives in Greenwich, Conn., was caught on a wiretap agreeing to pay $75,000 to rig his daughter’s ACT score.
“I’m not worried about the moral issue here. I’m worried about the, if she’s caught doing that, you know, she’s finished,” he said during the call with scam ringleader William (Rick) Singer, according to an FBI affidavit in the case.
A paid proctor was hired under the deal to correct his daughter’s ACT answers after she took the test, prosecutors said.
It wasn’t immediately clear why Caplan agreed to a plea deal so early in the criminal case.
California entrepreneur Peter Jan Sartorio became the first parent in the scandal to agree to a plea deal on Wednesday.
Actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin also have been charged but have not yet entered pleas.