Greenwich lawyer due in court
GREENWICH — A lawyer from Greenwich is one step closer to finding out his fate after he was caught in an FBI investigation into a college-admissions cheating ring that ensnared dozens of wealthy parents on the West and East coasts.
Just 10 weeks after Gordon Caplan was arrested, he is due to appear in U.S. District Court in Boston alongside Napa Valley vintner Agustin Huneeus Jr., another parent indicted in the notorious case, to officially enter his guilty plea. Actress Felicity Huffman pleaded guilty in court last week, the first high-profile parent to do so.
Caplan and Huneeus are scheduled to
appear before Judge Indira Talwani on Tuesday afternoon and are expected to plead guilty to the same criminal charges — conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
After his arrest on March 12, Caplan was accused in federal court documents of paying $75,000 to have a hand-picked proctor oversee an ACT exam taken by his daughter and “correct the answers after she had completed it,” according to federal documents.
In a transcript from an FBI wiretap, Caplan was nervous about the scheme, the court filings state.
“No one has ever gotten in trouble with this? … I mean, this comes out — I — I don’t even want to know what you guys do,” he said on one call, the complaint states.
Prosecutors have recommended Caplan pay a fine of $40,000 and receive a prison sentence “on the low end” of the maximum of 20 years.
Caplan apologized for his actions in a statement released April 8, the day he announced he will plead guilty.
“I take full and sole responsibility for my conduct and I am deeply ashamed of my behavior and my actions,” he said. “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.”
His daughter is still more than a year away from going to college, and had no idea that he made arrangements to have her ACT test fixed, he said.
“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,” Caplan said. “She had no knowledge whatsoever about my actions, has been devastated to learn what I did and has been hurt the most by it.
“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 I feel is more than I can convey,” Caplan said in the statement.
In April, he appeared in federal court in Boston with others charged in the case, including actress Lori Loughlin, of “Full House,” and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Gianulli. Loughlin and Gianulli have pleaded not guilty.
Caplan remains free on $500,000 bond. He faces a felony conviction, which would mean an automatic disbarment.
Also, Caplan is no longer with Manhattan-based international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he was a lawyer and a cochairman, after he signaled his intention to plead guilty. His firm had already placed him on leave after his arrest in March.
In the Huneeus case, prosecutors allege that he worked with conspirators who helped one of his daughters cheat on her SAT exam. They accused him of contributing $50,000 to a fake charity that ultimately would go to University of Southern California athletic officials to help her gain admission as a water polo recruit. Prosecutors planned to recommend a sentence of 15 months in prison.
For Huffman, prosecutors recommended a fourmonth prison term, a $20,000 fine and 12 months of supervised release. She will be sentenced Sept. 13.
Caplan, Huffman and Huneeus could have faced a maximum of 20 years in prison.