Felicity Huffman is days away from being sentenced as part of the college admissions scandal and in her own words, she’s explaining to the judge why she arranged to cheat on her daughter’s SAT exam.
The 56-year-old Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actress wrote a letter to the judge to explain her motivations for participating in the scheme.
Felicity says that she felt as an insecure as a mother as she was worried that her daughter’s learning disability would prevent her from getting into college.
“I honestly didn’t and don’t care about my daughter going to a prestigious college,” she said (via Variety). “I just wanted to give her a shot at being considered for a program where her acting talent would be the deciding factor.”
Felicity said that she thought for six weeks about college consultant Rick Singer‘s offer to have a proctor boost her daughter’s SAT scores. She ultimately paid $15,000.
“I felt an urgency which built to a sense of panic that there was this huge obstacle in the way that needed to be fixed for my daughter’s sake,” she wrote. “As warped as this sounds now, I honestly began to feel that maybe I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do what Mr. Singer was suggesting.”
“I so desperately wanted to do it right and was so deathly afraid of doing it wrong,” she said. “I was always searching for the right book or the right piece of advice that would help me help my daughters or keep me from making the mistakes that might damage their lives.”
Felicity says that she thought that by cheating, she would give her daughter a “fair shot” at getting into school. She added, “I see the irony in that statement now because what I have done is the opposite of fair. I have broken the law, deceived the educational community, betrayed my daughter, and failed my family.”
“In my blind panic, I have done the exact thing that I was desperate to avoid. I have compromised my daughter’s future, the wholeness of my family and my own integrity… I have deep and abiding shame over what I have done,” she said.
The prosecutors on the case are recommending that the judge sentences Felicity to one month in prison while her lawyers are hoping that she will receive probation and community service. The sentencing will happen next Friday in Boston.
Pictured inside: Felicity Huffman arriving for a court appearance in Boston back in April.
