Last month Felicity Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy “to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud for paying $15,000” to Rick Singer, the creator of the vast conspiracy known as Varsity Blues, “as part of a scheme to cheat on the SATs and boost her daughter’s test scores,” says CNN. Today, she begins her sentence at a federal prison in Dublin, California, which CNN describes as “a ‘low security’ prison with 1,235 female inmates in Alameda County, about 35 miles outside of San Francisco.”
The two weeks don’t constitute Huffman’s entire sentence, which was handed down by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani: She also has to pay a $30,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service. A statement from Felicity Huffman’s representative reads as follows:
Felicity Huffman reported today for sentencing to the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, CA. Ms. Huffman is prepared to serve the term of imprisonment Judge Talwani ordered as one part of the punishment she imposed for Ms. Huffman’s actions. She will begin serving the remainder of the sentence Judge Talwani imposed—one year of supervised release, with conditions including 250 hours of community service—when she is released.
Huffman is most famous for her roles on the TV shows Desperate Housewives and Sports Night. She was nominated for an Oscar for the 2005 movie Transamerica. She recently appeared in the acclaimed Netflix miniseries When They See Us.
27 Comments
Let’s all keep burying her and Aunt Becky so we don’t have to think about larger problems, including all the other idiots involved in this scheme, or people getting away with much larger con jobs on a national stage!
Can’t we bury all of them?
Well, this is a pop culture site, so they kind of have to follow stories that have a pop culture connection. This one fits.
Not sure I get your point… Isn’t part of the reason we’re all following this story is because it tracks almost completely parallel to some of the biggest issues / con jobs of today?Privileged amoral assholes that don’t know / don’t care that they’re assholes. CheckRich people with all the advantages in the world that still need to screw over everyone else. Check“I did it for my kids [my group, my party, my country] so it’s not a crime.” CheckDumping criminal, status-seeking, social-climbing, money grubbing behavior on your kids / family and then claiming it’s all about virtuous American values. CheckRich kids with Instagram accounts acting like the world owes them an apology. CheckWrist-slap justice for rich people. CheckShouting “I’m innocent!!” and / or gaslighting, despite a predominance of evidence that demonstrates guilt. Check
It’s the kind of thing that makes us feel good and gives us something to complain about and throw our energy while ignoring larger systemic issues. We end up with these people as the poster children of being bad while the actual assholes (private equity douchebags anyone?) end up continuing business as usual. Have we heard anything about the people who allowed this system to exist? Nah, just more celebrity bullshit.
Dude, you’re outraging in the wrong place. This is the AV Club, and the only way they’re going to do a piece on private equity douchebags is if it’s a movie. Because that’s their bailiwick. Not you know a hard news site. But something tells me you already know that. Now go away and bug the Washington Post or the New York Times.
She got to you! How much did she pay you? HOW MUCH?!!!
Box wine and a box set of Desperate Housewives. She also bought my silence on William H. Macy.Fuck, there goes the wine.
Less than Lori Loughlin.
I’ve thought for years that online vigilante justice has been a feel-good proxy for our collective feelings of failure to address systematic issues. We feel we can’t do anything against institutional racism so we double down on calling out individual racists. Same thing here. America’s so-called “meritocracy” is rigged but we can’t do anything about that, so scapegoating these people feels good. And Huffman is also being used for the disparities in the criminal justice system based on race and privilege, as if she had something to do with black people and other minority members getting unjustly harsh sentences.
It’s sad that people have to resort to that.
If you want to talk corruption in education why are we not looking at the universities themselves? If only these parents bribed the correct way by writing a check directly to the school no one would care.When all you need to know about a school is the percent of free and reduced lunch kids that attend and what state to know what the test scores of the school are going to be that is the real indictment. When rich parents can spend thousands on test prep while poor parent does not even know about SAT prep books that is the system that is worthy of damnation and scorn. Hey but they got Aunt Becky so the system is all good now and fair.
I’m so sorry for not thinking of the other criminals involved in this. Excuse me while I meditate on every wrongdoer in the universe, individually, as all good people should.
Watched the Lifetime movie version if this story yesterday. It was very Lifetimey.
Macy is so looking forward to some of that conjugal visit sex!
We can all sleep easy knowing this monster is safely behind bars.
Mail fraud, huh. Alrighty!
Bad ass
But I’ve been doing squats.
Anyone catch Ricardo Antonio Chavira’s comments on this whole thing? Apparently he couldn’t stand Huffman the entire eight years they were on Desperate Housewives, and now he can finally vent about it.
Honestly big ups to her for admitting it and just getting it all over with, happy to see she didn’t reach CRIME VISOR status
Her daughter is going to learn an important lesson from this: Don’t get caught.
Oh, come on! It’s right there, Felicity Huffman! I can’t believe she didn’t bribe the warden so that her dim kid could take her place!
Maybe it’s because I really like her as an actress, but I just can’t summon the outrage that I’m told I’m supposed to have toward her.
Does anyone really give two shits about this? The breathless coverage is so 2019.
Me too!
I think we have our new ‘Orange is the New Black’ spinoff.