Felicity Huffman Speaks on College Admissions Scandal, Recalls Daughters Woken Up “at Gunpoint”: “Nothing New to the Black and Brown Community”
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Felicity Huffman has opened up for the first time about her role in a controversial college admissions scandal in 2019 that sent her to prison.
“It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future. And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law,” Huffman told Los Angeles-based ABC7 Eyewitness News during an interview where she broke her silence for the first time. During her appearance, she apologized for unlawfully disguising a $15,000 charitable donation in the bribery scheme so someone could take her daughter’s SAT exam.
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“I think the people I owe a debt and apology to is the academic community. And to the students and the families that sacrifice and work really hard to get to where they are going legitimately,” a contrite Huffman said.
The Desperate Housewives star recalled meeting with William “Rick” Singer, the founder of a college prep business, and being drawn in to having someone take the SAT or ACT for her daughter. But that decision took time to evolve and not from a desire to strike an illicit deal to cheat the system, Huffman insisted.
She recalled working with Singer for over a year, “and trusted him implicitly and he recommended programs and tutors, and he was the expert.” But Singer finally drew her in to his fraudulent scheme by insisting Huffman’s daughter would never get into the colleges of her choice.
“And I believed him. And so when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seems like — and I know this seems crazy at the time — but that was my only option to give my daughter a future. And I know hindsight is 20/20, but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So, I did it,” Huffman said.
She also recalled in December 2017 driving her daughter to complete her SAT exam while her child was unaware of the fraudulent scheme. Huffman was having second thoughts. “She was going, ‘Can we get ice cream afterwards? I’m scared about the test. What can we do that’s fun?’ And I kept thinking, ‘Turn around, just turn around.’ And to my undying shame, I didn’t,” she recounted.
In time, Huffman had FBI agents at her front door. “They came into my home. They woke my daughters up at gunpoint, again nothing new to the black and brown community. Then they put my hands behind my back and handcuffed me and I asked if I could get dressed,” she recalled.
“And I thought it was a hoax. I literally turned to one of the FBI people in a flak jacket and with a gun and I went, ‘Is this a joke?'” It wasn’t. Huffman pleaded guilty in May 2019 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, served 11 days of a 14-day prison sentence and was ordered to do 250 hours of community service and pay a fine following her plea.
Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli, were also sentenced in the case, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues by the FBI. As part of the fraud, parents allegedly paid millions in bribes to get their children into elite colleges like Yale, Stanford and the University of Southern California.
Huffman’s husband, actor William H. Macy, was not involved in the scandal.
Four years after completing her community service with Susan Burton’s nonprofit A New Way of Life, which helps formerly imprisoned women be empowered to reenter society, Huffman remains on the organization’s board of directors.
“Well, I thought we would bring her in and put her at a desk and have her work in the office,” Burton told Eyewitness News while appearing alongside Huffman. “And she said, ‘No. I want to do real work.’ And she just organized all of our closets and donations. She went jogging down Central Avenue in South L.A. and created exercise classes for the women.”
Huffman said of the organization, “When I saw what A New Way of Life was doing, which is healing one woman at a time, if you heal a woman, you heal her children and you heal her grandchildren and you heal the community.”
As part of her ongoing support, Huffman will host A New Way of Life’s 2023 fundraising gala at Vibiana in Los Angeles on Dec. 3.
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