Felicity Huffman Recalls FBI Waking Her Daughters Up At Gunpoint Following College Admissions Scandal: “I Thought It Was A Hoax”

Four years after serving prison time for her part in the College Admissions Scandal, Felicity Huffman has broken her silence.

The Desperate Housewives star, as well as actress Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli, were among the dozens of wealthy parents who were caught using fraudulent means to get their children into big-name colleges. In Huffman’s case, she paid $15,000 to have her daughter’s SAT scores falsified.

“It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future,” she said in an interview with ABC-7 Eyewitness News that aired on Thursday (Nov. 30). “And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”

The actress even opened up about how the scheme — dubbed “Varsity Blues” — came to be.

“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 explained. “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.”

After a year, Singer — who was later sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and fined $10 million — allegedly told Huffman that her daughter was not going to get into any of her dream colleges.

“I believed him. And so when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seems like — and I know this seems crazy at the time — but that was my only option to give my daughter a future,” Huffman said. “And 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.”

Eventually, the FBI came knocking at Huffman’s door.

“They came into my home. They woke my daughters up at gunpoint,” she recalled. “Again, nothing new to the Black and brown community. Then they put my hands behind my back and handcuffed me and I asked if I could get dressed.”

She added, “I thought it was a hoax. I literally turned to one of the FBI people, in a flak jacket and a gun, and I went, ‘Is this a joke?'”

After pleading guilty to federal charges in 2019, the American Crime star served 11 days of her 14-day prison sentence, paid a $30,000 fine and participated in community service.

“I think the people I owe a debt and apology to is the academic community,” Huffman said. “And to the students and the families that sacrifice and work really hard to get to where they are going legitimately.”

Huffman’s daughter — who retook the SAT and was accepted to Carnegie Mellon University — was allegedly not aware of what her mother did behind her back. The star’s husband, Shameless actor William H. Macy, was also not charged with any wrongdoing.