more than a dozen parents including
actress Felicity Huffman have pleaded
guilty to their part in a massive
College Admission scandal Huffman and 10
other parents agreed to plead guilty to
one count of mail fraud others submitted
guilty pleas to other charges
now this scheme involved bribing coaches
at some of the country's top colleges
and in Huffman's case changing test
scores in many of the cases the money
was disguised as a donation to a fake
charity and of course all of this in an
effort to get those parents children
into the College of their choice joining
me now to discuss these plea deals
lawyer and former federal prosecutor
Percy Cain good morning thank you for
being here I do appreciate it first
question to you are you surprised to see
these plea deals pretty quickly after
you know this initially hit what two two
and a half weeks ago somewhat sometimes
that the federal government is it's
somewhat slow at doing this and it's not
a bad thing as far as the government is
concerned the government takes his time
it's different than in state court where
the police will arrest you and then they
believe that they need to actually
charge you right away but it is somewhat
surprising that she'd take the plea deal
quickly which is actually kind of good
for her though it's interesting because
you actually have had an opportunity to
look specifically at the plea deal is
there anything that jumps out at you um
there are a couple things the first
thing is that they're trying to charge
it with a larger loss then she actually
paid she paid out fifteen thousand
dollars and the loss that they're trying
to charge it with is more than fifteen
fifteen thousand to forty thousand but
the plea deal does anticipate and allow
her to argue that she should be charged
with the loss of between sixty five
hundred and fifteen thousand why do you
think that that is the case is that
something you took to bolster an
argument that she deserves jail time as
an example um it's possible but what I
probably think it is is that because
even though she paid $15,000 more was
paid to others in order for her daughter
to get that benefit but it still was
actually more than forty so it doesn't
really explain that
so it's interesting because for those of
you who haven't followed as closely as
we have that fifteen thousand dollars
was
was to pay to have somebody else go in
and change test scores for her daughter
when she took the SAT of course Huffman
says that her daughter had no idea about
the scheme and has apologised profusely
let's look at what she could face then I
mean obviously the judge is going to
take into account you know any priors
there aren't any do you think she'll end
up because this has gotten so much
publicity that she and others could end
up seeing some jail time or prison time
um her personally I don't really think
so
the reason being is that her guidelines
are so extremely low the four to ten
months essentially is the first step
above where you would have any jail time
period the step below that is zero to
six months because she has no criminal
history and when you look at the 18 USC
3553 a factors is which what the judge
has to look at to determine whether or
not a person should go to jail I don't
see it
that along with there's something called
the Charles Colson task force on federal
detention essentially what there was is
there was a congress mandate which
analyzed the federal judicial system
because there were too many people
incarcerated and we couldn't sustain it
and it initially said that what you need
to do is reserve jail for more you know
violent and serious crimes since one
could could characterize this perhaps as
kind of a white collar crime let's talk
a little bit about a William singer he
was the one who basically kind of
organized this according to prosecutors
he's already pled he was cooperating he
recorded some of these conversations and
whatnot that he had with some of those
who are accused how does that make it
more difficult for those who have not
maybe made a plea deal or maybe are
considering going to trial how does it
make it more difficult in defending them
um if they have something recorded it's
extremely difficult to get beyond that
and the government you know normally
comes in and does not charge you until
they believe that they have you and so a
lot of these people are just kind of
fighting with themselves not wanting to
have a federal record and it's likely in
their best interest to please do you
anticipate then with for example actress
Lori Lachlan
and I know we don't know the specific
you know minutiae details about what she
is accused of in terms of dollar amounts
and everything else about half a million
dollars or so for her two daughters but
do you anticipate that that that there
could be a plea deal with her I mean
what that the difference in timing is
interesting because you had 13 parents
who've who have entered a plea deal but
others who have not well sometimes they
offer different plea deals you know to
different defendants and they may have
gotten a plea deal that they didn't
really like and if you get something
that you don't like yeah because they
actually paid out an awful lot more
money so their guidelines would be an
awful lot higher because their loss is a
lot higher so they will likely be
looking at jail time so it'd be
interesting to see what happens and of
course we'll continue to follow it
mercy King thank you for being here -
appreciate it