AP entertainment news in brief

Huffman released with 2 days left on prison term

SAN FRANCISCO — Actress Felicity Huffman was released Friday morning from a federal prison in California two days before the end of a two-week sentence for her role in the college admissions scandal, authorities said.

The “Desperate Housewives” star was released from the low-security prison for women because under prison policy, inmates scheduled for weekend release are let out on Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said.

Her husband, actor William H. Macy, dropped off Huffman — aka inmate No. 77806-112 — at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin in the San Francisco Bay Area on Oct. 15, with one day of credit already banked for the day she was originally arrested and jailed.

A federal judge in Boston last month sentenced Huffman, 56, to two weeks in prison, a $30,000 fine, 250 hours of community service and a year’s probation after she pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy for paying an admissions consultant $15,000 to have a proctor correct her daughter’s SAT answers.

The Emmy-award winning actress tearfully apologized at her sentencing, saying, “I was frightened. I was stupid, and I was so wrong.”

A representative for Huffman did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the actress on Friday.

Huffman was the first parent sentenced in a scandal involving dozens of wealthy parents accused of bribing their children’s way into elite universities or cheating on college entrance exams.

Other parents in the far-reaching scandal could face far stiffer sentences.