An ex-soccer coach at Yale University was sentenced to five years in prison for his participation in a college admissions scam. This was despite his efforts to help investigators uncover the vast scheme.
Rudy Meredith pleaded guilty in March 2019 to wire fraud for accepting bribes totalling hundreds of thousands of dollar to help potential students get into Yale as purported soccer recruits. Prosecutors argued that one person did not play soccer.
Meredith was the Connecticut Ivy League university’s head coach of the women’s soccer team. He served as such from 1995 to 2018. On Wednesday, Meredith was sentenced to five months in prison, one year probation, and almost $570,000 in fines or forfeitures by a Boston federal judge.
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Rudy Meredith, Yale’s women’s soccer coach, gives tips to the players at a scrimmage held in Ocala (Florida) in September 2016. (Doug Engle/Star-Banner via AP, File)
Defense attorneys and prosecution lawyers recommended that he not be sentenced beyond the time he has already served. U.S. U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf found that he “betrayed” his victims, Yale soccer team athletes by cheating them out to play for a better team and potential students who were cheated of a chance at playing.
Wolf said to Meredith, “You committed a very severe crime”
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Rudy Meredith, a former Yale women’s soccer coach leaves federal court in Boston on March 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
Meredith spoke softly and apologized to the court for allowing his greed to ruin his career and reputation.
He said to the court, “It’s all mine and I am going for it for the rest my life.”
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Meredith collaborated with investigators to foil the plot in April 2018, nicknamed Operation Varsity Blues, which was executed by William “Rick” Singer.
Prosecutors claimed that Meredith directed investigators to Singer and that he allowed them record him asking for $450,000 from a father who would pay for his daughter’s admission to Yale to be a purportedly athletic athlete.
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Wolf stated that he could have spent many years in prison if he had not cooperated with Wolf.
This report was contributed by The Associated Press.
