Feds: Palm Beach man tried to bribe daughter's way into Georgetown as tennis team recruit
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A part-time Palm Beach resident has been charged in connection with the nationwide college admissions bribery scandal, federal prosecutors said this week.
A federal grand jury indicted Amin C. Khoury, 54, who has homes in Palm Beach in and the Cape Cod town of Mashpee, Mass, in connection with using fraud and bribery to have his daughter designated as a Georgetown University tennis recruit, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston said Wednesday.
Khoury – son of Amin J. Khoury, former chairman and chief executive of Wellington-based XLX Energy Services Holdings – appeared that day in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart set a $250,000 bond and approved Khoury's transfer to Massachusetts, court records show.
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In May 2014, Khoury agreed to pay $200,000 through a third party to Gordon Ernst, then the head tennis coach at Georgetown, in exchange for Ernst designating Khoury’s daughter as a recruit, despite the fact that her skills were "below that of a typical Georgetown tennis recruit." the federal statement said.
In December 2014, Georgetown rated the daughter's admission as “likely,” and in May 2015, she was accepted to the Washington, D.C., school, the indictment said.
Khoury then gave the third party, not named, $180,000, with directions to drive to Falmouth, Mass., and give it to Ernst's spouse.The third party handed over $170,000 and kept $10,000 as a fee. Ernst then began pressing Khoury for the $20,000 he was shorted, the U.S. Attorney said.
Neither the news advisory nor the indictment says how things then came to a head.
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The two federal counts against Khoury call for prison terms of five years and 10 years, respectively.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced that Ernst had been charged with three counts of federal programs bribery and three counts of filing false tax returns. The indictment said Ernst solicited and received bribes from three other prospective Georgetown applicants.
Khoury is the 57th person charged nationally in the admissions bribes scandal.
Eoin P. Beirne, Khoury's attorney, said his client will plead not guilty. He also said Khoury's case is different from the California cases that led to celebrities such as TV stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman being charged.
"There was no test or class cheating," Beirne said from Boston."His (Khoury) child’s college application was completely accurate and contained no misrepresentations about being a fake athlete or anything else. We look forward to this process to rebut the government’s claims."
Khoury's father, Amin J. Khoury, resigned from KLX on May 1, citing "personal family health reasons." In May 2018, the company sold its KLX Aerospace Solutions to Boeing in a deal worth an estimated $4.25 billion. The elder Khoury also is on the board of directors of the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach.
Amin C. Khoury graduated Brown University and worked with his father's firm, then founded Boston Film and Interactive Group. He also led Stuart-based Nitro Leisure Products, the world’s largest recycler of golf balls.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: College admissions scandal: Man accused of Georgetown tennis bribe
