Felicity Huffman finally speaks out about Varsity Blues admissions scandal after 11 day prison stunt for bribing her daughter's way into college: 'I had to break the law to give her a future'

Felicity Huffman has finally broken her silence on the Varsity Blues scandal that saw her spend 11 days in jail after bribing college officials $15,000 to fudge her daughter's SAT scores, saying she felt she had 'no option' but to break the law.

Huffman paid $30,000 in fines and spent 11 days in jail after being charged with fraud. 

She had paid Rick Singer $15,000 to fudge her daughter Sophia's SAT scores in 2018 in order to land her a place at college and was among a group of wealthy, famous parents swept up in the scandal. Actress Lori Loughlin was also jailed for paying for both her daughters to be accepted into USC. 

In her first public remarks outside of the courtroom, Huffman tells ABC that she thought it was 'a joke' when FBI agents turned up at her mansion to arrest her. 

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'They came into my home, they woke my daughters up at gunpoint - again, nothing new to the black and brown community - then they put my hands behind my back and handcuffed me.

'I asked if I could get dressed. I thought it was a hoax. I literally turned to one of the FBI people in a flak jacket and a gun and I go "is this a joke?"

Huffman said she regretted the scheme but felt she had no choice at the time because Sophia, who she previously said has a learning disability, would not have been accepted otherwise. 

Now, Sophia is studying drama at Carnegie Mellon in New York. 

'It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future. And so it was sort of like my daughter's future, which meant I had to break the law,' she said. 

'I think I feel the people I owe a debt and an apology to is the academic community and to the students and the families that sacrifice and work really hard to get to where they are going legitimately.' 

Huffman is speaking out now to highlight A New Way of Life, an organization that helps formerly incarcerated women reintegrate into society. 

'I want to use my experience and what I've gone through and the pain to bring something good,' she said. 

Huffman and husband William H. Macy hired Singer to help Sophia improve her scores and get into college. 

She claims the scheme was not obvious at first, but became plain when Singer told them Sophia would not be accepted into any schools without greasing the wheels. 

'After a year, he started to say your daughter is not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to. 

'And I believed him. And so when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seems like - and I know this seems crazy at the time - but that was my only option to give my daughter a future.

'And I know hindsight is 20/20 but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn't do it. So - I did it,' she said. 

Sophia was unaware that her parents had paid for someone to alter her test answers after she completed the SATS. 

The scheme involved Singer paying off a handful of discreet SAT test supervisors who would inflate students' scores once they had completed the exam. 

On the day of the SAT test, she said Sophia was nervous and asking if they could go for ice cream afterwards. 

'She was going, 'Can we get ice cream afterwards?'" Huffman recalls. "I'm scared about the test. What can we do that's fun? And I kept thinking, turn around, just turn around. And to my undying shame, I didn't,' Huffman said. 

Loughlin and husband Mossimo Giuliani had their daughters masquerade as sports stars, propping them up on rowing machines to fudge applications that presented them as athletes.