Montco Dad Sentenced For Bribing Daughter's College Coach

AMBLER, PA — A local man has received a year of probation from a federal judge in Boston as punishment for his role in a college sports bribery case, according to federal prosecutors.

Robert Repella, 63, of Ambler, was sentenced on Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs in the District of Massachusetts to one year of probation, with the first 25 days to be served out in home confinement, as well as 220 hours of community service and a $220,000 fine.

Repella had pleaded guilty to one federal count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud in connection with accusations that he agreed to pay the former head Georgetown tennis coach, Gordon Ernst, a bribe of more than $120,000 in exchange for Ernst recruiting Repella's daughter to the university's tennis team, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts, which announced this week's sentencing.

Ernst was also involved in a separate college admissions conspiracy that was led by William "Rick" Singer, but prosecutors this week stressed that Repella was in no way connected to that other scandal.

In the previous case, Ernst had pleaded guilty and received a sentence of 30 months in prison, two years supervised release and ordered to forfeit close to $3.5 million, according to prosecutors.

In Repella's case, prosecutors said that the Pennsylvania man first met with Ernst in the summer of 2017 and agreed to pay the coach to use one of six yearly recruitment slots for Repella's daughter, even though her tennis abilities were not at the level of a typical Georgetown recruit.

Repella initially wrote Ernst a check for $25,000, which was soon followed up by a second $25,000 payment, the U.S. Attorney's Office stated.

After Repella's daughter became a tennis recruit at Georgetown, Repella made additional payments to the coach through August 2018, which included tuition payments used by Ernst for Ernst's daughter's private schooling, prosecutors stated.

A report on 6 ABC says that Repella is a former pharmaceutical executive.