Myha Harris
Staff Writer
to have her daughter’s SAT scores raised.
Before the sentence was handed down, prosecutors dismissed Huffman’s previous articulation of parental concern, saying, “Welcome to parenthood.” They compared her case with a series of other systematic education fraud cases where defendants were sentenced to prison time.
Of those charged, more than 30 parents are accused of conspiring with Huffman and more than a dozen of them have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit
fraud.
Huffman, along with the actress Lori Loughlin, was among the most famous parents swept up in the scandal.
Although, she isn’t the first to receive special treatment for her child’s education through bribery, she is the first parent to be sentenced for the immense college cheating scandal that has oscillated America’s higher education system.
Huffman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
CNN reports that U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said Huffman must serve 12 months of supervised release, 250 hours of community service and pay a $30,000 fine.
Huffman’s attorney requested that the actress be allowed to spend her 14-day prison sentence at a federal correctional institution in Dublin, California, that only holds 1,235 female inmates in Alameda County, about 35 miles outside of San Francisco.
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has the final authority to decide where Huffman will serve time when she reports to the bureau in six weeks, on October 25, according to the CNN report.
If held at the Federal Correctional Institution of Dublin, Huffman would have to wear khaki clothing with her inmate number and her name and make her bed by 6:30 a.m.
After the sentencing, Huffman issued this statement: “I accept the court’s decision today without reservation. I have always been prepared to accept whatever punishment Judge Talwani imposed. I broke the law. There are no excuses or justifications for my actions. Period.”
She also apologized to the students who work hard every day to get into college and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children.
According to the CNN report, Huffman stated, “I can promise you that in the months and years to come that I will try and live a more honest life.”
Even though Huffman is receiving a lot of whiplash from authorities, she has received a lot of advice from people in her career field.
Abbey Lee Miller stated, “Huffman will be sent to a “big, huge room with bunk beds” in order to acclimate to prison life…she’s not going to get a job because she won’t be there long enough. She’s not going to learn how to be a plumber and how to do HVAC.
Even with Huffman’s scandal taking America by storm the question still remains will this be a wake-up call for parents who pleaded guilty in similar cases?
Factual information for this story was obtained from CNN.com and Bostonglobe.com.
Factual information for this story was obtained from CNN.com and Bostonglobe.com.
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