Father pleads guilty in college bribery scheme

One of the 33 parents charged in the college admissions bribery scandal agreed to plead guilty Wednesday. Peter Jan Sartorio, a packaged-food entrepreneur from California, disclosed the deal as Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin appeared in federal court in Boston, along with some of the other defendants. Prosecutors accuse Sartorio, 53, of paying $15,000 in cash to have someone correct his daughter’s answers on the ACT college entrance exam. The exact charges to which he planned to plead were not immediately clear.

The two actresses and Loughlin’s fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, appeared at the hearing but said little and were not asked to enter a plea. They remain free on bail. The proceedings came three weeks after federal prosecutors charged 50 people in all with taking part in a scheme in which parents bribed coaches and helped rig test scores to get their children into some of the nation’s most selective universities, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Southern California.