Greenwich resident Gordon Caplan, former co-chairman of New York City law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, intends to plead guilty in the college admissions bribery scandal.
The attorney is the second of the 33 parents charged in the scandal, which has ensnared celebrities Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who will enter a guilty plea. The parents are collectively accused of paying about $25 million to help their children gain admission to such institutions as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and USC.
Caplan is accused of paying $75,000 to get a test supervisor to correct the answers on an ACT college entrance exam after his daughter, a high school junior, took it. He maintains that his daughter was unaware of his actions, and said she has not yet applied to college, “much less been accepted by any school ”¦. (she) has been devastated to learn what I did and has been hurt the most by it.
“I take full and sole responsibility for my conduct and I am deeply ashamed of my behavior and my actions,” he said in a statement on Friday. “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.
“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,” he added. “The remorse and shame that I feel is more than I can convey.”
Caplan, who was placed on leave by Willkie last month, is no longer a partner at the firm.
Earlier this week, Peter Jan Sartorio, a packaged-food entrepreneur from California, became the first parent to agree to plead guilty in the scandal. He was accused of paying $15,000 in cash to have someone correct his daughter”™s answers on an ACT exam.
