An FBI spokesperson said 'this is a case where they flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat to the system'
DESPERATE Housewives actress Felicity Huffman has been charged by a US court after taking part in a £4.9million scam which helped her daughter get into an elite college like Yale or Stanford.
The actress, who is married to Oscar-nominated actor William H Macy, 68, was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud.
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.
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.
