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Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin: How College Admission Scandal Ensnared Stars

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Liberal Democrats, too lazy and stupid to compete 
scholastically.  This is the result of the present day inferior 
California school system, once the envy of the entire free 
world, after 40 years of Democrat control and parasitic 
socialist union infestation.

TAGS: Cheat Lie Bribe Obama Ignorant Liberal Dumb Crime College 
High School Sports USC Coach ACT Democrat LA Times, Washington 
Post, NY Times Elite Hollywood TV Media Twitter youTube Scumbags 
Kiss Your Job Goodbye

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A year ago, the feel-good Hollywood couple Felicity Huffman and 
William H. Macy made a $15,000 donation to the Key Worldwide 
Foundation. A bookkeeper for the charity wrote back saying that 
the money would help “provide educational and self-enrichment 
programs to disadvantaged youth.”

But the foundation, prosecutors said on Tuesday, was little more 
than a conduit for a massive SAT-fixing and college admissions-
rigging scheme. And the youth helped by the payment was far from 
disadvantaged: She was the couple’s elder daughter.

The Justice Department unsealed indictments Tuesday accusing 
admissions advisers, coaches and school officials of offering 
wealthy families one of two back doors into the colleges of 
their choice.

[Fifty people were charged in the widespread scam to get 
undeserving students into colleges.]

One method involved bribing university officials to pass off 
applicants as athletic recruits even if they weren’t; the other 
used brazen cheating on standardized exams. And both schemes had 
Hollywood stars playing a role.

Ms. Huffman’s career in Hollywood stretches back to the 1970s. 
Her performance as Bree, the transgender main character in 
“Transamerica,” earned her an Oscar nomination in 2006. But much 
of her work has been in television. She is best known for roles 
including Lynette Scavo in “Desperate Housewives” and Dana 
Whitaker in the Aaron Sorkin show “Sports Night” as well as for 
several roles in the ABC show “American Crime.” Most recently, 
Ms. Huffman, 56, played Special Agent Clara Dillard in Epix’s 
“Get Shorty.”

In 1997, she married Mr. Macy, the same year he was nominated 
for an Oscar, after he starred in “Fargo.” Mr. Macy, 68, a 
veteran of many movies, currently plays Frank Gallagher, the 
head of the dysfunctional family in the Showtime comedy series 
“Shameless.” They have two daughters: The elder was born in 
2000, and the younger two years later.

According to the authorities, William Singer, the head of a 
college preparatory business and the founder of the charity, met 
with Ms. Huffman and Mr. Macy in their Los Angeles home and 
explained how he could help them. Mr. Singer, who has pleaded 
guilty and is cooperating with investigators — he is identified 
as “cooperating witness 1” in the Justice Department complaint — 
said he could arrange for their daughter’s SAT proctor to 
secretly correct her wrong answers and boost her score. “CW-1 
has advised investigators that Huffman and her spouse agreed to 
the plan,” the complaint said.

Following Mr. Singer’s instructions, Ms. Huffman had her 
daughter seek permission to get extra time on the SAT, an option 
available to students with learning disabilities or other needs. 
Once the girl received the permission, Mr. Singer instructed Ms. 
Huffman to have her daughter take the test in December 2017 with 
a proctor who was in on the scheme. (He is cooperating witness 
No. 2.)

At first, when it appeared that a different proctor from her 
daughter’s own high school would be involved, Ms. Huffman 
emailed Mr. Singer: “Ruh Ro!” They soon got the plan back on 
track by using another test site where, according to the 
complaint, the crooked proctor would be present.

Less than two months ago, Parade published an interview with Mr. 
Macy, in which he spoke of his older daughter’s college search. 
“We’re right now in the thick of college application time, which 
is so stressful,” he said. “I am voting that once she gets 
accepted, she maybe takes a year off.”

However stressful the process was, prosecutors believe the 
cheating helped his daughter’s cause.

“Ultimately, Huffman’s daughter received a score of 1420 on the 
SAT, an improvement of approximately 400 points over her PSAT, 
taken without CW-2 one year earlier,” said the complaint, 
referring to the Preliminary SAT.

It was unclear if their daughter has been admitted to any 
colleges, or if she even knew, before Tuesday, about any 
cheating on her behalf.

The complaint also includes excerpts from a conversation in 
which Mr. Macy, Ms. Huffman and Mr. Singer discussed repeating 
the process for the younger daughter, but only after she took 
the SAT on her own to see how well she would do. If they went 
through with the plan, Mr. Singer explained, the second score 
could only go up so much or else they would raise suspicions.

Ultimately, Ms. Huffman and Mr. Macy decided not to proceed with 
the plan for their younger daughter, the complaint said.

Ms. Huffman was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and 
honest services mail fraud. But Mr. Macy, who is referred to in 
the complaint as her spouse but not by name, was not charged. 
Neither the complaint nor prosecutors’ statements explained why, 
though it is possible that prosecutors believed they did not 
have enough evidence to charge him. In the emails and recorded 
telephone conversations quoted in the complaint, Mr. Macy is a 
direct participant only in conversations regarding the aborted 
plan, not the one that was carried to fruition and resulted in 
the $15,000 payment.

A representative for the couple did not respond to a request for 
comment. Ms. Huffman was arrested on Tuesday morning in Los 
Angeles, according to the United States Attorney’s Office in 
Boston, which is spearheading the prosecution. She was released 
after posting a $250,000 bond after a court appearance Tuesday, 
The Associated Press reported.

Among Ms. Huffman’s most recent projects is “When They See Us,” 
a Netflix series due out this year about the wrongful 
convictions in the Central Park jogger case, in which she plays 
Linda Fairstein, one of the prosecutors. Netflix declined to 
comment.

Another actress who was charged, Lori Loughlin, was making 
arrangements to surrender. Ms. Loughlin, 54, is best known for 
her role as Aunt Becky in the 1990s sitcom “Full House,” a role 
she reprised recently in a reboot, “Fuller House,” which 
streamed on Netflix.

Her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, also was charged. Mr. Giannulli 
founded the Mossimo fashion brand in 1986. The company sells 
clothing and accessories around the world, including in 
Australia, Mexico, Japan and India. It had a partnership with 
Target that ended in 2017.

Their daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli, a budding social media 
influencer with close to two million YouTube subscribers and 1.3 
million Instagram followers, posted two paid advertisements on 
Instagram that highlighted her identity as a student shortly 
after having been admitted to the University of Southern 
California. According to the Justice Department complaint, she 
had a lot of help getting in.

[Read more about Olivia Giannulli, now a college student.]

Her parents are accused of paying $500,000 to have Olivia and 
her sister classified as crew recruits for U.S.C. despite never 
having participated in the sport, according to prosecutors. The 
complaint says $100,000 was in the form of two $50,000 bribes to 
Donna Heinel, a senior associate athletic director at U.S.C., 
who then marked the girls as potential members of the crew team. 
Heinel was indicted.

The couple sent the other $400,000 to the foundation — a payment 
of $200,000 after each daughter received her U.S.C. admission 
letter.

A representative for Ms. Loughlin declined to comment.

It was not clear whether either girl knew about any scheme to 
help them, or what, if anything, U.S.C. would do with them now.

In a statement, the school said: “We are aware of the ongoing 
wide-ranging criminal investigation involving universities 
nationwide, including U.S.C. U.S.C. has not been accused of any 
wrongdoing and will continue to cooperate fully with the 
government’s investigation.”

Correction: March 12, 2019
An earlier version of this article misstated the name for a 
charity cited in the indictment. The charity is the Key 
Worldwide Foundation, not the Key World Foundation.

Correction: March 14, 2019
An earlier version of this article misstated how the charges 
were brought against Ms. Huffman, Ms. Loughlin and Mr. 
Giannulli. While some people accused in the admissions cheating 
scheme were indicted by a grand jury, the parents of the 
students were not; they were charged by prosecutors in a 
criminal complaint.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/arts/huffman-loughlin-college-
scandal.html
   

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Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin: How College Admission Scandal Ensnared Stars "Elizabeth Paige Laurie" <cblasey@paloaltou.edu> - 2019-03-17 13:55 +0100

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