Oct. 8 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Massachusetts sentenced a married couple to one month in prison each Tuesday for paying to boost their daughter's college admission test scores.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani also ordered Gregory Abbott and Marcia Abbott each to serve a year of supervised release after being released from prison, in addition to imposing a $45,000 fine for each defendant and requiring they each complete 250 hours of community service for their role in the national college admissions scandal.
Prosecutors asked Talwani to sentence each of the Abbotts to eight months in prison after they both pleaded guilty to using a family foundation to pay $50,000 to the scandal's ringleader, William "Rick" Singer, to fix their daughter's ACT scores and $75,000 to do the same for two SAT subject tests.
Gregory Abbott, who lives in Manhattan and took a leave of absence from his role as chairman and CEO of International Dispensing Corp., was ordered to report to federal prison on Nov. 20.
Marcia Abbott, a former fashion editor at Family Circle magazine who lives in Aspen, Colo., must turn herself in by Jan. 3.
The couple became the fifth and sixth parents sentenced in the so-called Operation Varsity Blues scandal, in which 35 parents were charged and 15 have pleaded guilty.
No sentence has been longer than five months and actress Felicity Huffman received the shortest sentence of two weeks in prison.
