DESPERATE Housewives actor Felicity Huffman has agreed to plead guilty for her part in a college cheating scam.
The TV star stands accused of being involved in a £4.9million swindle which helped her daughter get into an elite American university like Yale or Stanford.
The actor, who is married to Oscar-nominated actor William H Macy, 68, was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud.
She is one of 13 parents who agreed on Monday to admit the charges — the maximum sentence she faces is 20 years in prison, three years supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
The scheme was masterminded by William Rick Singer who ran a college preparation business in California.
He used the cash to bribe two exam administrators and hired a man called Mark Riddell to sit the tests or correct the answers.
It’s claimed Huffman, 56, made a donation of £11,500 to the charity which fronted the scam.
In return her eldest daughter, Sofia, 18, was allegedly given twice the amount of time to complete the SAT, a standard college entrance test in America.
The indictment also said that Sofia’s answers were secretly corrected afterwards – giving her a 400 point increase on her final result.
In a statement, Huffman said she had “betrayed” Sofia by paying someone to alter her SAT results.
In my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I betrayed her.
Felicity Huffman
She said: “I am pleading guilty to the charge brought against me by the United States Attorney’s Office.
“I am 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.
“I want to apologise 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 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.”
An unsealed court document also stated that “Huffman later made arrangements to pursue the scheme a second time, for her younger daughter, before deciding not to do so.”
An FBI spokesperson said in a news conference after the charges were made: “This is a case where they flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat to the system so they could set their children up for success with the best money can buy.”
Macy was not charged or named in the documents.
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