Felicity Huffman may only be behind bars for 14 days, but according to a former inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, the Desperate Housewives alum may be in for a rude awakening.
“It’s no picnic, it’s not ‘Club Fed’ and it’s not cushy at all,” Amy Povah, who served nine years at the same prison as Huffman from 1991 to 2000, told Us Weekly exclusively. “I work with a lot of women who are still there and I’m horrified that the conditions have grown horribly worse since I left in 2000.”
Povah, who founded the Can-Do Foundation upon her release, told Us that the inmate’s living conditions will depend on who their roommate is.
“We certainly tried to keep it as clean as possible,” Povah explained, noting that Huffman may spend time in the prison’s camp, which slightly differs from the medium security facility she served her time in. “I don’t know if she will receive any special treatment.”
Still, Povah noted that everyone has to work during their sentence.
“We do have to work, all of us has to work. Nobody gets to escape that. Everyone has a job,” she told Us. “Felicity will probably have to work in the kitchen for 14 days because that’s where everybody is assigned at first. They get you up at the crack of dawn and you clean pots and pans.”
She also noted that the showers at the prison were often “out of order and needed to be repaired.”
“There’s not supposed to be more than two people per room and they have four people in a lot of rooms,” Povah continued. “[It’s] four people crammed into teeny-weeny broom closet-sized things that barely fits four beds, then they have lockers at the end of the beds [that] you have to turn sideways, unless you’re a skinny stick, to get to your bed because the beds are that close together. Then there is a toilet and a sink all in that little bitty room.”
A second former inmate, who served more than a year at the Dublin prison before her April 2016 release, echoed Povah’s thoughts about the living conditions.
“There are no one person cells at FCI Dublin. There are twin size beds that they squeeze up to four people in,” the second former inmate, who wished to remain anonymous, explained. “The inmates are responsible to keep the cells clean, so there’s no chance for a dirty room. To me, it only felt too crowded if you had a lot of stuff. … The inmates are safe, unless you cause yourself problems.”
Huffman, 56, reported to prison on Tuesday, October 15, to serve her 14-day sentence for her role in the nationwide college admissions scandal. The actress, who paid $15,000 to improve her 19-year-old daughter Sophia’s SAT scores, was sentenced last month after she pleaded guilty to fraud charges. Huffman apologized to her husband, William H. Macy, Sophia and the couple’s 17-year-old daughter, Georgia, in a statement after her sentencing.
“I especially want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices supporting their children,” Huffman’s statement read. “My goal now is to serve the sentence that the court has given me. I look forward to doing my community service hours and making a positive impact on my community. I also plan to continue making contributions wherever I can well after those service hours are completed.”
In addition to her 14-day sentence, Huffman was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine, a year of supervised release and 250 hours of community service.
Reporting by Katie Bruno
