Famous actress Felicity Huffman broke her silence on her role in the College Admissions Scandal.
The Oscar-award winning star spoke candidly about what led her to make the decision to pay bribe money to ensure her daughter was admitted to college. Huffman explained her role in the scam, and how she felt about what she had done, during an interview with ABC-7 News that aired Thursday. “It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future,” she said. “And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”
Huffman recalled how the situation began.
“People assume that I went into this looking for a way to cheat the system and making proverbial criminal deals in back alleys, but that was not the case,” she said.
“I worked with a highly recommended college counselor named Rick Singer. I worked with him for a year and trusted him implicitly; he recommended programs and tutors and he was the expert.
“And after a year, he started to say, ‘Your daughter is not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to.’ And so, I believed him,” Huffman said.
She went on to indicate the pressure she felt to do something to help her child.
“When he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like — and I know this seems crazy at the time — that that was my only option to give my daughter a future,” Huffman said.
“I know hindsight is 20/20 but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So, I did it.”
Huffman admitted she paid to have a proctor change her daughter Sophia’s answers in the exam, and admitted to having second thoughts as she drove her daughter to take the test.
“I kept thinking, ‘Turn around, just turn around,'” Huffman told ABC.
“To my undying shame, I didn’t,” she said.
Huffman pled guilty to her role in the scandaland served 11 days of her 14-day prison term. She was sentenced to 250 hours of community service, and was on supervised release for one year, according to ABC.
The “Desperate Housewives” actress completed her community service with ‘A New Way Of Life,” a non-profit that helps formerly incarcerated women get back on track. She decided to stay-on, even after her required term ended.(RELATED: ‘EVERY CHANNEL!’: John Stamos Recalls Lori Loughlin’s Response When The College Admissions Scandal Made Headlines)
“I want to use my experience and what I’ve gone through and the pain to bring something good,” Huffman said.
Sophia took the SATs on her own and was accepted to Carnegie Mellon University’s theater program, on her own merit.