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Actress Felicity Huffman starts serving jail time in college scam

Huffman starts prison time

"Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman reported Tuesday to a U.S. prison in California to serve a two-week sentence in a college admissions scandal, a representative said.

A brief statement Tuesday from Huffman's publicist, the TASC Group, said that she "is prepared to serve the term of imprisonment Judge Talwani ordered as one part of the punishment she imposed for Ms. Huffman's actions." A spokesman for the agency refused to be named.

A federal judge in Boston sentenced Huffman last month to 14 days in prison, a $30,000 fine, 250 hours of community service and a year's probation.

The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin is a low-security prison for women in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Huffman was one of 51 people charged in the scandal, which exposed the lengths to which parents will go to get their children into elite schools and reinforced suspicions that the college admissions process is slanted toward the rich.

Huffman pleaded guilty in May to fraud and conspiracy for paying an admissions consultant $15,000 to have a proctor correct her daughter's SAT answers.

The amount Huffman paid is relatively low compared with other alleged bribes in the scheme. Some parents were accused of paying up to $500,000.

The scandal was the biggest college admissions case ever prosecuted by the Justice Department.

Prosecutors said parents schemed to manipulate test scores and bribed coaches to get their children into schools by having them labeled as recruited athletes for sports they didn't play.

The correctional facility did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday seeking comment.



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