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Felicity Huffman Sentenced to 14 Days Behind Bars in College Admissions Scandal By Turns Tearful and Stoic, Felicity Huffman Gets 14 Day Prison Sentence
(about 3 hours later)
BOSTON — The actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison for paying a college consultant $15,000 to inflate her daughter’s SAT score, becoming the first parent given a punishment in a sweeping scheme in which nearly three dozen wealthy parents are accused of using lies and bribes to smooth their children’s way into prestigious colleges. BOSTON — Facing time in prison for her role in the nation’s largest college admissions scandal, the actress Felicity Huffman grew tearful, her voice breaking as she told a courtroom that she wished she had never taken part in a scheme to inflate her daughter’s SAT score. Earlier, she sat silent and stoic as a prosecutor ticked off all the reasons probation would not be sufficient punishment.
Ms. Huffman’s sentence, which included a $30,000 fine, supervised release for a year and 250 hours of community service, was being closely watched as an indication of how harshly parents in this case would be punished. And it suggested that the judge, Indira Talwani, agreed with prosecutors that a term of imprisonment — even a short one — was necessary to send a message that wealthy parents would not get away with trying to steal admissions slots from more deserving students. In the end, a federal judge in Boston sentenced Ms. Huffman to 14 days in a federal prison on Friday. She was the first parent to face punishment in a scheme in which nearly three dozen wealthy people are accused of using lies and bribes to smooth their children’s way into prestigious colleges.
[A look back at other times manipulation of the admissions process caused a scandal] Looming over Ms. Huffman’s sentencing were questions about fairness, and whether she and the other mostly white parents in the case would be treated more leniently than poor or nonwhite defendants accused of educational fraud. The issues were emerging in a case that has been seeped with questions of inequity — and well-to-do parents’ efforts not just to guard their advantages, but to grab more.
Ms. Huffman’s lawyers had argued for a sentence of probation. They said that prison was not needed as a deterrent in Ms. Huffman’s case because she had already suffered enough — being publicly shamed, seeing her acting career crater, and incurring the anger of her family. The judge’s decision to impose a prison sentence on Ms. Huffman, whom prosecutors saw as one of the least culpable parents, made it more likely that any parents convicted in the case will face at least some prison time, even if the period is brief and largely symbolic.
Even before the sentencing, questions were being raised about fairness and whether Ms. Huffman and the other defendants would receive lighter punishments than poor and nonwhite defendants convicted of similar crimes. In arguing that the parents in this case should go to prison, prosecutors had pointed to examples of defendants like Kelley Williams-Bolar, an African-American single mother in Akron, Ohio, who was sentenced to five years in prison — a sentence later suspended to 10 days in jail, three years of probation and community service — for using her father’s address to get her children into a nearby suburban school district. They also pointed to a group of black public schoolteachers, principals and administrators in Atlanta, who were convicted in a conspiracy to cheat on state tests, some of whom were sentenced to as much as three years in prison.
Ms. Huffman’s sentence was unlikely to silence those questions. Some observers had already dismissed one month of incarceration that prosecutors had requested as too short for what they viewed as a crime driven by greed and entitlement. “If a poor single mom from Akron who is actually trying to provide a better education for her kids goes to jail, there is no reason that a wealthy, privileged mother with all the legal means available to her should avoid that same fate,” Eric S. Rosen, the lead prosecutor in the case, said in court.
At the same time, lawyers for some black defendants who were given prison sentences for crimes involving educational fraud said that the solution to disparities in the justice system was not to send Ms. Huffman to prison for longer, but to send fewer black defendants there. “If we believe in just punishment,” he added, “we should not put the Williams-Bolars in jail while letting the Huffmans go free.”
[Dozens of wealthy parents, according to court documents, paid millions of dollars in bribes to secure the admission of their children into elite universities.] Ms. Huffman’s lawyer, Martin Murphy, argued that most comparable defendants were given probation rather than prison. And he said that, just as Ms. Huffman’s wealth and fame should not lead the judge to impose a lighter sentence, they should not lead her to impose a longer one, either. He had argued in a sentencing memorandum that a term of imprisonment was not needed as a deterrent in Ms. Huffman’s case because she had already suffered considerably, by being publicly shamed, seeing her acting career crater, and facing the anger of both her daughters.
Beyond Ms. Huffman’s case, the scheme included cheating on college entrance exams and bribing college coaches to designate students as recruits in sports that in most cases they did not play. “It can’t be the case that Ms. Huffman should be treated more harshly because of her financial circumstances and her notoriety,” he said.
In a letter Ms. Huffman submitted to the court ahead of her sentencing, she described being motivated to take part in the cheating scheme by a mix of maternal devotion and fear. She wrote that her insecurity as a parent, which she said was amplified by having a daughter with learning disabilities, made her trust the college counselor she had hired and rely on his advice against her better judgment. The counselor, William Singer, whom prosecutors have described as the mastermind of the admissions scheme, has pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges; he has not yet been sentenced. Ms. Huffman herself addressed the judge, Indira Talwani, reading from notes and frequently choking up as she said how deeply she regretted taking part in the cheating scheme in which she paid $15,000 to inflate her daughter’s test score.
After he had counseled Ms. Huffman’s daughter for nearly a year, Mr. Singer told Ms. Huffman that, unless her daughter’s SAT math score rose sharply, the performing arts schools she was aiming for would not even consider her, Ms. Huffman told the judge. She recalled driving to the school where her daughter was to take the SAT and — afterward and unbeknown to her daughter — where a proctor planned to illicitly correct the answers. At one point along the drive, as her daughter asked whether they could get ice cream after the test, Ms. Huffman remembered having second thoughts about her plan. She told the court, “I thought to myself, ‘Turn around, turn around, turn around.’” She paused as she choked back tears. “To my eternal shame,” she said, “I didn’t.”
[The Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin became the public faces of a sprawling college admissions bribery scheme.] She said that when she was later arrested and had to explain to her daughter what she had done, “She said to me, ‘I don’t know who you are anymore, Mom.’”
“I honestly didn’t and don’t care about my daughter going to a prestigious college,” Ms. Huffman wrote. “I just wanted to give her a shot at being considered for a program where her acting talent would be the deciding factor. This sounds hollow now, but, in my mind, I knew that her success or failure in theater or film wouldn’t depend on her math skills. I didn’t want my daughter to be prevented from getting a shot at auditioning and doing what she loves because she can’t do math.” “I realize now with my mothering that love and truth must go hand in hand,” she told the judge, “and that my love coming at the expense of truth is not real love.”
Prosecutors had argued that the parents involved needed to serve at least some time in prison, to show that wealthy people would not get away with corrupting the admissions system. At one point the prosecutors had indicated they would ask that Ms. Huffman face four months behind bars, but they lowered their request last week. Judge Talwani also imposed a $30,000 fine, supervised release for a year and 250 hours of community service. Ms. Huffman was ordered to report in six weeks to a federal Bureau of Prisons facility that has yet to be chosen.
Prosecutors have charged 51 people in the expansive admissions case, including coaches and employees of Mr. Singer, and 15 of the 34 parents charged have pleaded guilty. In the cases of some other parents who have pleaded guilty in the case, prosecutors are seeking as much as 15 months of incarceration. They asked for a comparatively lighter sentence for Ms. Huffman in part, they said, because she paid less than many of the other parents and because she chose not to include her younger daughter in the scheme. In a statement released by a spokesman after the hearing, Ms. Huffman said: “I accept the court’s decision today without reservation. I have always been prepared to accept whatever punishment Judge Talwani imposed. I broke the law. I have admitted that and I pleaded guilty to this crime. There are no excuses or justifications for my actions. Period.”
Other parents are scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks, many of them by Judge Talwani. The likelihood that other defendants will get short sentences or probation increased slightly on Friday when Judge Talwani said, in a memorandum filed before Ms. Huffman’s sentencing, that the victims of the fraud — testing companies and the universities where coaches were bribed — had not suffered any financial harm that should affect the defendants’ sentencing guidelines. That means that all the parents before Judge Talwani will likely be facing sentencing guidelines of zero to six months, though she noted in her memorandum that she can issue a sentence outside the guidelines. Prosecutors have charged 51 people in the expansive admissions case, including coaches and others, and 15 of the 34 parents charged have pleaded guilty. In the cases of some other parents who have pleaded guilty in the case, prosecutors are seeking as much as 15 months of incarceration.
In arguing for at least a brief period of incarceration, prosecutors had pointed to examples of educational fraud that had been punished with prison terms — in some cases, long ones. In court papers, they cited a case in which Atlanta public schoolteachers, principals and administrators were convicted in a conspiracy to cheat on state tests, and some were sentenced to as much as three years in prison; all of the defendants were black. In another case, an African-American mother in Ohio, Kelley Williams-Bolar, was sentenced to five years in prison — a sentence later suspended to 10 days in jail, three years of probation and community service — for using her father’s address to get her children into a nearby suburban school district. They asked for a comparatively lighter sentence — one month — for Ms. Huffman in part, they said, because she paid less than many of the other parents and because she chose not to include her younger daughter in the scheme. Besides the cheating on tests, some parents are accused of conspiring to bribe college coaches to pass their children off as athletic recruits in sports they often did not play.
[Read how students of color responded to accusations that they were admitted solely because of racial preferences.] Ms. Huffman was not the only Hollywood celebrity charged in the case. The actress Lori Loughlin is accused of conspiring to use bribes to get her daughters admitted to the University of Southern California as recruits to the women’s crew team. She has pleaded not guilty.
In light of examples like these, the prosecutors suggested, sentencing parents in this case to probation would invite accusations of unfairness and racial bias. Prosecutors had raised the cases of Ms. Williams-Bolar, the black mother from Ohio, and the Atlanta educators, to argue that fairness required sentencing Ms. Huffman and the other parents in this case to at least some period of incarceration.
But some defense lawyers involved in those cases rejected suggestions that their clients’ cases should be used to argue that Ms. Huffman should be sent to prison. But some defense lawyers involved in those cases questioned that logic.
David Singleton, the executive director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, who represented Ms. Williams-Bolar in successfully seeking clemency in her case, said that there were indeed disparities in the justice system.David Singleton, the executive director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, who represented Ms. Williams-Bolar in successfully seeking clemency in her case, said that there were indeed disparities in the justice system.
“When you are rich — and particularly if you’re rich and white in this country — there’s a different justice system,” he said. But, he added, “Sending Felicity Huffman to jail is not going to solve that problem.”“When you are rich — and particularly if you’re rich and white in this country — there’s a different justice system,” he said. But, he added, “Sending Felicity Huffman to jail is not going to solve that problem.”
Similarly, lawyers who represented educators charged in the Atlanta test cheating scandal said that the sentences given to some of the defendants in that case were excessive.Similarly, lawyers who represented educators charged in the Atlanta test cheating scandal said that the sentences given to some of the defendants in that case were excessive.
[U.S.C. has fought to attract low-income students. Now, the campus has become a vivid microcosm of the economic disparities in Los Angeles.]
“Our educators in our cheating scandal in Atlanta were way over-prosecuted and way over-punished,” said Bob Rubin, who represents Dana Evans, a former principal, who was convicted of a racketeering charge and of making a false statement to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent. Ms. Evans was sentenced to one year in prison; her case is currently on appeal.“Our educators in our cheating scandal in Atlanta were way over-prosecuted and way over-punished,” said Bob Rubin, who represents Dana Evans, a former principal, who was convicted of a racketeering charge and of making a false statement to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent. Ms. Evans was sentenced to one year in prison; her case is currently on appeal.
“My answer is not to give Felicity Huffman more, but to give our clients less,” Mr. Rubin said.“My answer is not to give Felicity Huffman more, but to give our clients less,” Mr. Rubin said.
In fact, many of the 35 defendants charged in the Atlanta case pleaded guilty and received sentences of probation. Issues of equity seemed to be very much on Judge Talwani’s mind.
Sandy Wallack, who represented Dessa Curb, a special-education teacher who was found not guilty at trial, said Ms. Huffman’s case seemed more akin to the Atlanta defendants who had received probation, since Ms. Huffman pleaded guilty and expressed contrition. He said that probation was probably an appropriate sentence. She told Ms. Huffman that what had outraged people about the admissions scandal was not the revelation that something that was supposed to be a meritocracy was not really one. Everyone already knew that the admissions system was distorted by money and privilege, she said, with wealthy students having numerous advantages over poor ones, including better academic preparation, individualized tutoring and college counseling, access to fancy internships, and basics like food and stable housing.
People’s outrage, she told Ms. Huffman in the crowded courtroom, was “that in a system of that sort, in that context, that you took the step of obtaining one more advantage to put your child ahead of theirs.”
She suggested to Ms. Huffman that, in imposing a sentence, she was clearing the slate for her.
After serving her time, she said, Ms. Huffman could move forward and rebuild her life.
“After this, you’ve paid your dues,” she said. “I think without this sentence you would be looking at a future with the community around you asking why you had gotten away with this.”