Professor James Cohen provided his opinion in the New York Daily News about the sentence handed down to actress Felicity Huffman for her part in the college admission scandal.
“Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman was sentenced to only 14 days in prison Friday for her role in what prosecutors have called the largest college admissions bribery scandal ever prosecuted.
The Emmy winner also got 250 hours of community service, a $30,000 fine and one year of probation. But the jail time was less than half the measly month prosecutors wanted after revising their requested jail time down from their original four-month target.
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Huffman, 56, pleaded guilty in the high-profile case last May. She admitted spending $15,000 to have a paid-off proctor correct answers on her daughter’s SAT test two years ago.“This was a gift,” James Cohen, a law professor at Fordham University, told the Daily News Friday. “I think it’s a low sentence. It’s a defense win.”
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Cohen said Huffman “did everything right” in responding to the criminal charge, “but the reality you can’t get around is that she exercised the power of her privilege, and that really shouldn’t be tolerated.”“I don’t think anyone else is going to go below 14 days, unless there’s some sort of health issue,” he said, referring to others charged in the case. “Most of the parents were just greedy, and they took advantage of their wealth and status to get what they wanted.”