Actress Felicity Huffman, the first parent in the US college admissions cheating scandal to go to prison, was released from a California facility on Friday, before the end of her 14-day sentence, a prison spokeswoman said.
The "Desperate Housewives" star was scheduled to be let out on Sunday, but the spokeswoman cited a policy that allows for the early release of inmates whose release day is on a weekend. Huffman, 56, an Academy Award nominee, turned herself in to authorities at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, on Oct. 15.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani had sentenced her to serve two weeks behind bars after Huffman pleaded guilty to conspiracy related to her payment of $15,000 to have someone secretly correct answers on her daughter Sophia's SAT college entrance test. She is among 52 people charged with participating in a wide-ranging scheme in which wealthy parents engaged in a bribery and fraud scheme with a California college admissions consultant to get their children into top colleges, including Yale, Stanford and the University of Southern California.