UPDATED: Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman Charged By Feds In College Bribery Scam Designed To Buy Their Kids Into Elite Universities

UPDATED: TMZ reports that Lori Loughlin is set to turn herself in to federal authorities on Wednesday morning. The feds showed up at her house this morning just as they did for Felicity Huffman, but Loughlin was in Vancouver filming. The feds did, however, arrest her husband, Mossimo Giannulli.

ORIGINAL: In a pretty stunning story, TMZ reports that Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, along with 48 other people, have been charged by federal authorities in a huge bribery scam designed to buy their kids into elite universities. William Ringer has been named as the head of the bribery ring and has already pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

The court documents from the United States Attorneys Office show that the people charged paid anywhere from $200,000 to as much as $6.5 million to bribe their kids into elite schools such as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California. The authorities discovered around $25 million in bribes, funneled through a fake non-profit, charitable foundation which laundered money from the parents to SAT or ACT administrators or college coaches. The coach would then create a fake profile that listed the student in question as an athlete who he/she would then “recruit” to the college, while the administrators would either hire a proctor to take the SAT/ACT for the kid in question or just correct the kid’s answers.

Loughlin allegedly paid $500,000 to have her two daughters recruited for the crew team at USC even though they didn’t participate in crew. Loughlin’s husband, Mossimo Giannulli, who has also been charged, even sent photos of their daughters on rowing machines.

One of Loughlin’s daughters posted a video to social media (which is below) last year about starting college, saying she didn’t “really care about school” and was only excited about the partying.

Huffman and her husband, actor William H. Macy (who was not charged), allegedly made a $15,000 “charitable contribution” to the scam which got their eldest daughter twice the amount of time to finish the SAT as other students got, as well as getting the exam administrator to correct her answers afterwards. The result was a 1420 SAT score, a 400 point improvement over her PSAT score.

The feds recorded phone calls which featured Loughlin and Huffman discussing the scheme with another person who was working with the feds.

The kids allegedly had no idea that their parents were part of this scheme.

Huffman was taken into custody earlier after feds showed up at her house with guns drawn, according to TMZ. She has since been released after Macy showed up to the federal courthouse in Los Angeles to post bond. She reportedly knew over the last few days that the arrest was coming.