TPG Senior Exec Bill McGlashan Placed On Leave After Being Charged In College Cheating Scandal

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Bill McGlashan, a top executive at Bay Area private equity firm TPG has been placed on leave after he was charged in a wide-ranging college testing and admission cheating scandal. TPG, which has invested in firms such as Uber, Airbnb and Spotify, said as a result of the charges it placed McGlashan on "indefinite administrative leave, effective immediately."

McGlashan is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the growth equity platform TPG Growth.

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McGlashan was among dozens of business leaders and Hollywood celebrities accused of paying bribes to get their children into elite universities including Stanford, USC, UCLA and Yale. Some parents made fake athletic profiles of their children in order to be recruited as Division 1 athletes despite not having played the sport, authorities said.

In McGlashan's case, prosecutors allege he conspired with USC associate Athletic Director Donna Heinel to get his son admitted to USC as a recruited athlete using a fake profile, and that McGlashan paid a $50,000 bribe to have his son's ACT exam answers corrected after the test was completed.

McGlashan is alleged to have paid out a total of $250,000 for his son to get into USC through the "side door," according to the complaint. USC fired Heinel along with legendary water polo coach Jovan Vavic after word of the federal indictments.

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McGlashan is known in Silicon Valley for backing social causes and is seen as leading voice for ethical investing. One of the his ventures is a TPG investing arm known as The Rise Fund with partners such as Bono, business magnate Richard Branson and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs.