Felicity Huffman To Plead Guilty In College Admissions Scandal

LOS ANGELES, CA — Actress Felicity Huffman joined the first wave of parents to plead guilty in the nationwide college admissions bribery scandal.

The actress, one of the most high-profile parents caught up in the scheme, will plead guilty for agreeing to pay at least $15,000 to bolster her oldest daughter's score on the SAT exam. She is among 13 parents who have agreed to plead guilty in the scheme.

Huffman has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. It remains to be seen if the plea deal will spare the Golden Globe-winning actress from jail time. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison along with a fine of $250,000.

With the guilty plea, Huffman would admit to paying $15,000 to have her oldest daughter's answers corrected on the SAT college-entrance exam.

As with many of the dozens of parents indicted, Huffman is in a tight spot. The admitted ring-leader of the bribery and cheating scheme had turned on his various clients, cooperating with prosecutors and tricking parents, including Huffman, into discussing the alleged crimes on phone calls that were secretly being recorded.

A date has not yet been set for Huffman to enter her plea.

The 56-year-old actress issued a statement saying she is "in full acceptance of my guilt, and with deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions."

"I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues and the educational community," she said. "I want to apologize to them and, especially, I want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly.

"My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions, and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her. This transgression toward her and the public I will carry for the rest of my life. My desire to help my daughter is no excuse to break the law or engage in dishonesty."

According to the indictment, Huffman paid the Newport Beach businessman William Rick Singer $15,000 to have her daughter's answers on the SAT college-entrance exam corrected by a corrupt test proctor to improve her final score. Court documents state that Singer paid a man to proctor the SAT exam taken by Huffman's daughter and the children of several other clients. In Huffman's case, the proctor corrected her daughter's test answers, giving her a final score of 1420 — 400 points better than she had previously scored on the PSAT exam.

Huffman's husband, award-winning actor William H. Macy, was recorded discussing the alleged scheme on the same phone call as Huffman, but he was not charged.

Another famous actress embroiled in the scandal, Lori Loughlin, 54, has not yet reached a deal with prosecutors. The "Full House," actress is accused of paying Singer $500,000 to have her two daughters admitted to USC as crew team recruits, even though neither had ever participated in the rowing sport.

When it was exposed last month, the scandal sent shockwaves across the nation, tarnishing the reputations of elite schools as well as the wealthy parents apparently willing to cheat to get their children into them. Several coaches at local universities were arrested in connection with the alleged $25 million scheme. Parents willing to fork out bribes were able to get their children into schools such as USC, UCLA, Yale, Stanford and Georgetown as fake athletic recruits or by cheating on their entrance exams. In many cases, the students involved were unaware of their parents' scheming.

Federal prosecutors said that in some cases, the ruse over fake athletic recruiting included the use of staged or faked photos of the students posing with athletic equipment or appearing to compete in sports they did not actually play.

Athletic coaches from USC, UCLA, Yale, Stanford, Wake Forest and Georgetown, among others, were implicated in the scheme, as well as parents and entrance-exam administrators.

There was no indication that the schools themselves were involved in the scheme.

When federal authorities announced the indictments, USC announced that two of its employees implicated in the scandal -- water polo coach Jovan Vavic and senior associate athletic director Donna Heinel -- had been fired. UCLA men's soccer coach Jorge Salcedo was placed on leave but later resigned.

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City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.