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BOSTON – Probation officials said Felicity Huffman's role in the college admissions scandal had "no casualties" and no "real or projected losses," court documents said Wednesday.
Although the US Probation and Remand Services Report does not explicitly recommend that Huffman be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, it is clear that the report was on the side of the Oscar-nominated actress and of his attempt to avoid incarceration.
Judge Indira Talwani of the US District Court is to sentence Huffman on Friday, and the US Attorney's Office has said that Huffman should spend a month in jail and pay a $ 20,000 fine for her role in the admissions scandal. in universities.
At the beginning of the year, she pled guilty to committing postal fraud and honest service fraud, as part of a $ 15,000 payment for audit by a SAT supervisor. of the correction of one of his daughter's answers to the test.
Probation officials said the government was wrong to set Huffman's sentence range at nine months because the money she had paid was not to be a factor in her sentencing.
According to the report, Huffman should be sentenced to four months' imprisonment recalculated.
"The probation office says there is no victim of this offense," the report says.
"The probation office respectfully disagrees and maintains that there was no real or projected loss in this case and that the gain should not be used as another measure of loss. The mere fact that a person has been convicted of an economic offense does not mean that the amount of the loss must be greater than zero. "
Not only do federal probation officers attack prosecutors, but they also blame some of the alleged victims of the case, particularly college board administrators and schools.
Probation officers "wonder what degree of responsibility lies with schools and testing agencies for not having properly supervised admission and testing processes to ensure that they were fair to all students, "according to the eight-page court document.
The probation report could reinforce the defense's claims that Huffman should be sentenced to 250 hours of community service, a one-year probation and a $ 20,000 fine – and to no penalty of imprisonment.
The actress, who co-starred on the ABC drama "Desperate Housewives" and was nominated for the Oscars for "Transamerica," is also investigating the same ploy for another girl, though "I'm not sure." she never executed this plan.
Prosecutors wrote to the judge that Huffman's conduct was "deliberate and clearly criminal" in the national scandal that also trapped actress Lori Loughlin.
The FBI's "Operation Varsity Blues" investigation revealed how well-heeled parents had paid college repairer Rick Singer for bringing their kids to elite universities by increasing their test scores or making them pass for high level athletes worthy of admission.
At the end of last week, Huffman told Talwani, in a letter, that she had made bad choices in panic about her daughter's prospects for college.
"My own fears and lack of self-confidence, combined with a girl who has learning difficulties, have often made me feel insecure and very anxious from the start," she wrote. "I was always looking for the right book or advice that could help me help my daughters or prevent them from making mistakes that could hurt their lives."
She added: "In my blind panic, I did exactly what I absolutely wanted to avoid.I compromised my daughter's future, the completeness of my family and my own integrity."
Ezra Kaplan reported from Boston; and David K. Li from New York
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