Newport Beach Mother Sentenced In College Admissions Scandal

NEWPORT BEACH, CA — A Newport Beach mother, socialite, and fundraiser joins actress Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman as those sentenced in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal.

Dozens of parents and college athletic coaches were implicated in the scandal.

Mother Karen Littlefair of Lido Isle, 57, paid $9,000 to have an imposter take online classes for her son to facilitate his graduation from Georgetown University, was sentenced Wednesday to five weeks in prison. Littlefair was also sentenced by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs in Boston to two years of supervised release, which includes 300 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a fine of $209,000.

According to a memo obtained from Littlefair's lawyer, Georgetown University since stripped her son's Georgetown degree from him. He has left employment from the U.S. Treasury Department, and the family has been "humiliated," the Los Angeles Times reported.

Littlefair pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The 18th parent to be charged and sentenced in the sting known as "Varsity Blues," conspiring with William "Rick" Singer. She hired an employee of Singer's for-profit college counseling business, The Edge College & Career Network (The Key). According to the Times, that worker took online classes in place of her son, who was on academic probation at the time.

Singer previously pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government's code-named "Varsity Blues" investigation.

"Full House" actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion-designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded guilty in May to federal conspiracy charges for participating in the scheme and face sentencing on Aug. 21.

In a court filing on Monday, lawyers for the couple, who admitted to paying $500,000 to get their daughters into USC as fake crew recruits, asked the judge to cut their bail from $1 million to $100,000. They also asked the judge to remove the requirement that their bonds be secured by a lien on their house.

If the judge accepts their plea deals, Loughlin will be sentenced to two months in prison, and Giannulli will be sentenced to five months.

Oscar-nominated actress Felicity Huffman was released Oct. 25 from a low-security federal prison camp in Northern California 11 days into a 14-day sentence handed down last September for paying to have a proctor correct her daughter's answers on a college-entrance exam.

Huffman was also ordered to spend a year on supervised release, pay a $30,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service. She was the first parent to be sentenced in connection with the wide-ranging college-admissions cheating scandal "Varsity Blues."

City News Service, Patch editor Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.