Actress Felicity Huffman jailed for paying $15k in college admissions cheating scheme

Rebecca Speare-Cole13 September 2019

Actress Felicity Huffman has been sentenced to 14 days in prison for paying her daughter's way into college.

The Desperate Housewives star admitted to paying $15,000 to have her daughter's entrance exam answers corrected.

Huffman is the first parent sentenced in a wide-ranging US college admissions scandal.

More than 30 parents were charged in the investigation dubbed Operation Varsity Blue.

ctress Felicity Huffman arrives at the federal courthouse with her husband William H. Macy.
REUTERS

Actress Lori Loughlin, who starred in the TV series "Full House," and her designer husband Mossimo Giannulli were also charged as well as a host of corporate executives, financiers and lawyers.

Unlike Huffman, Loughlin and Giannulli pleaded not guilty.

The scandal cast a spotlight on the advantages of wealth in college admissions and the lengths to which some rich Americans have gone to get their children into top universities at the expense of other applicants.

These schools included Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas and Wake Forest.

Huffman apologised for her actions before being sentenced by US District Judge Indira Talwani in federal court in Boston on Friday.

The 56-year-old Academy Award nominee said her daughter Sophia was unaware of the scheme until the actress was arrested on March 12.

The actress said her daughter was 4-years-old when Huffman first started trying to help her deal with learning disabilities.

Actress Felicity Huffman arrives at the federal courthouse with her husband William H. Macy.
REUTERS

"I find Motherhood bewildering," Huffman said in a letter to the judge before sentencing.

"My daughter looked at me and asked with tears streaming down her face, 'Why didn't you believe in me? Why didn't you think I could do it on my own?' ... I have compromised my daughter's future, the wholeness of my family and my own integrity," Huffman said.

It comes after Huffman tearfully entered a guilty plea in May to conspiracy related to her payment of $15,000 to have someone secretly correct her daughter's answers on the SAT standardised test used for college admissions.

Prosecutors had told the judge it was important that the sentence include time behind bars.

"Incarceration ... would provide just punishment for the offense, make it clear that this was a real crime, causing real harm, and reinforce the vital principle that all are equally subject to the law regardless of wealth or position," US Attorney Andrew Lelling said in pre-sentencing documents.

Mr Lelling had also recommended a $20,000 fine and one year of probation.

Huffman and her husband, actor William H. Macy, looked sombre when they arrived at the federal courthouse, holding hands, ahead of the sentencing.

Macy, 69, said their daughter "certainly paid the dearest price" when her desired school - which remained unnamed in court documents - rescinded its acceptance of her after Huffman's arrest. Macy was not charged.

"She had been accepted into a few schools but her heart was set on one in particular which, ironically, doesn't require SAT scores," Macy said in a letter to the judge.

"She started as one of several thousand applicants and after making it through many auditions, she flew to the school two days after her mom's arrest for the final selections. When she landed, the school emailed her withdrawing their invitation to audition," Macy said.

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