Actress Felicity Huffman’s brush with justice for her role in the now-infamous college admissions scandal has allegedly now mobilized her into helping more women be released from prison.
“After she served 11 days of her 14-day prison sentence for her role in the nation-wide college admissions scandal, the 56-year-old actress reportedly has been dedicating her time to helping women in prison improve their lives,” reports Fox News.
A source close to Huffman told Entertainment Tonight that “conditions at the prison were very difficult” and that there were “no real programs or initiatives to help the incarcerated women who were there.”
“Felicity felt like the women in that facility were being discarded and left behind; they were forgotten,” the source said. “She loved the women there and bonded with them. When she left she felt guilty leaving them behind.”
This past April, Felicity Huffman pleaded guilty for her role in “Operation Varsity Blues,” confessing to paying $15,000 to an admissions consultant to manipulate her older daughter’s SAT answers. In a statement at the time, Huffman said she accepted full responsibility for her actions and apologized.
“I am in full acceptance of my guilt, and with deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions,” Huffman said in the statement. “I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues and the educational community. I want to apologize to them.”
“I want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly,” she continued. “My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions, and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her. This transgression toward her and the public I will carry for the rest of my life. My desire to help my daughter is no excuse to break the law or engage in dishonesty.”
As a result of her confession, Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison while being ordered to pay a $30,000 fine, face a year of supervised release, and serve 250 hours of community service. The source close to the actress said that her community service will focus on helping the incarcerated women.
“She would like for her next community service work to be helping women who were recently incarcerated and need help re-entering society,” the source said. “This work will be a long-term commitment for her well beyond her community service hours.”
Felicity Huffman had previously worked as a tutor at the Teen Project, which works with “at-risk homeless teenagers involved in sex trafficking and those who suffered from addiction issues,” as reported by Fox News.
“She’s been doing that for two years, well before this case happened,” the source said. “She’s been tutoring those girls two times a week for two years and this has been an amazing experience for her and her daughter. Felicity is not your average Hollywood actress.”