Federal prosecutors hit Cranston tennis and hockey legend Gordie Ernst with new criminal charges in the college admissions scam, accusing him of new bribery charges and of filing false tax returns.

The new charges, unveiled Tuesday in Massachusetts federal court, are being added to the charges Ernst had already faced. They represent an escalation of the government’s case against him not just in the total number of charges, but also in the new details of the accusations, which bring Ernst’s personal and family life to the forefront.

Ernst was first accused in March of 2019 of accepting $2.7 million in bribes to get rich kids into Georgetown through his tennis program there.

Not only did Ernst accept bribes arranged by the scheme’s ringleader, Rick Singer, he also solicited bribes of his own, without Singer’s help, prosecutors allege in three new charges.

They also accused him of not declaring the bribes on his taxes, filing false tax returns for the years 2015, 2017 and 2018.

Dozens have been charged in the college admissions scam, including rich and famous parents, college coaches and administrators on the take, and a California-based “consultant” named Rick Singer.

Many have already pleaded guilty, including Singer and the actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, but Ernst has maintained his innocence.

According to accusations in the superseding indictment — a list of allegations filed in court — one of the bribes Ernst solicited had its roots in a Brown University reunion.

In 2014, Ernst attended a Brown reunion in Providence with the father of a Georgetown applicant and a tennis recruiter, the indictment says. The father was Amin Khoury prosecutors said in a separate indictment charging Khoury, whose lawyer said he maintains his innocence.

Khoury, 54, played tennis with Ernst at Brown University.

Ernst, prosecutors say, agreed to pay the tennis recruiter $10,000 to act as a “middleman” in a bribe to designate Khoury’s daughter as a tennis recruit, prosecutors say. That helped her chances of getting into Georgetown, even though she wasn’t a highly ranked tennis player and wouldn’t have otherwise been recruited, prosecutors say.

Ernst coached Khoury to have his daughter tell Georgetown she wanted to play tennis at the university, prosecutors say. After she got in, Khoury withdrew $200,000 from a bank in Florida, flew to Massachusetts and met with the tennis recruiter, giving him the cash — $180,000 for Ernst and $20,000 for himself, prosecutors say.

The tennis recruiter then went to Falmouth, Massachusetts, and gave Ernst’s spouse $170,000, keeping $10,000 for himself as part of the deal Gordie Ernst and the recruiter had arranged, prosecutors say.

For months after that, the tennis recruiter repeatedly asked Khoury about the rest of the money that he owed Ernst, prosecutors said.

Ernst himself also texted Khoury, prosecutors say, shedding light on his own personal circumstances.

Ernst had grown up in a middle-class neighborhood of Cranston, the son of Dick Ernst, a coaching legend in his own right, and Rollie Ernst. Although he by then owned a house in upscale Chevy Chase, Maryland, and a second home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, he was in need of money in 2016, the indictment suggests. He texted the dad in July that they needed to “square up soon.”

“My dad is very sick and I need to chip in and help my mom,” Ernst texted Khoury, according to prosecutors.

Ernst and Khoury later set up a meeting at a Starbucks in Mashpee, Massachusetts for more money toward the bribe, authorities said.

Dick Ernst died in September 2016.

Other members of Ernst’s family aren’t accused of any wrongdoing. Prosecutors did not say who the tennis instructor is.

Khoury’s lawyer, Eoin Beirne, said in an email: “This indictment differs significantly from the so-called Varsity Blues case. Amin C. Khoury had nothing whatsoever to do with Rick Singer. There was no test or class cheating. His 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.”

Prosecutors allege Ernst solicited bribes to get two other kids into Georgetown, one of whose parents donated to Ernst’s daughters’ private schools as part of the scheme.

Ernst was quietly forced out of his job at Georgetown, owing to admissions irregularities, before taking a lower-paying coaching job at the University of Rhode Island. He lost that job after he was charged in the college admissions scam.

A lawyer for Ernst didn’t respond to a request for comment.

bamaral@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7615

On Twitter: bamaral44