Actress among 50 people charged in college bribes scandal

Desperate Housewives actress Felicity Huffman is among up to 50 people charged in a sweeping US college admissions bribery scandal, according to federal officials.

The justice department has charged coaches and affluent parents including stars and chief executives with taking part in a scam that involved helping students cheat on entrance exams, as well as getting non-athletic students admitted on fake athletic scholarships.

Authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the US justice department.

Actress Lori Loughlin is among those charged but was not taken into custody yesterday morning. Her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, was arrested at their home.

Under the scam parents bribed college coaches and insiders at testing centres to get their children into some of the most elite colleges in the country, federal prosecutors said. Announcing the $25 million bribery case US Attorney Andrew Lelling dubbed the parents as “a catalogue of wealth and privilege”.

At least nine athletic coaches and 33 parents were among those charged in the investigation, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues.

Prosecutors said parents paid an admissions consultant from 2011 until last month to bribe coaches and administrators to label their children as recruited athletes, to alter test scores and to have others take online classes to boost their children’s chances of getting into colleges. Parents spent from $200,000 to $6.5m to guarantee their children’s admission.

Lelling added: “For every student admitted through fraud, an honest and genuinely talented student was rejected,”

The coaches worked at such colleges as Stanford, Georgetown, Wake Forest, the University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles. A former Yale soccer coach pleaded guilty and helped build the case against others. The colleges are not targets of the investigation.

Authorities said sports coaches accepted bribes to put students on lists of recruited athletes, regardless of their ability or experience, to boost chances of admission.

Court documents said Huffman paid $15,000 that she disguised as a charitable donation so that her daughter could take part in the college entrance-exam cheating scam. A co-operating witness met Huffman and her husband, actor William H Macy, at their Los Angeles home and explained to them that he “controlled” a testing centre and could have somebody secretly change her daughter’s answers. The person told investigators that the couple agreed. Macy was not charged. Huffman’s representative hadn’t responded to a request for comment.