Mamas Uncut

College Admissions Scandal: Parenting Book Author Jane Buckingham Sentenced After Paying Proctor $50K to Take ACT for Teenage Son

Another parent has been sentenced to jail for paying their children’s way into college. Jane Buckingham, 51, an author and marketing consultant, was sentenced to three weeks in prison. The US Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts, tweeted out the news on Wednesday following the sentencing.  

In addition to jail time, Buckingham will pay a $40,000 fine. She will also be supervised for one year after she’s released from prison, according to the US Attorney’s Office.

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Jane Buckingham and Son

Buckingham is known for authoring the parenting books The Modern Girl’s Guide to Motherhood, Modern Girl’s Guide to Life and Modern Girl’s Guide to Sticky Situations. She was arrested for hiring a corrupt test proctor to take the ACT test on behalf of her son. She alleged worked with William “Rick” Singer to arrange for the fraudulent test and paid him $50,000 to do so.

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She pleaded guilty last spring to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. “I committed this crime for myself,” she wrote to the judge, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Not because I wanted my son to go any particular school, but because I needed to make myself feel like a better mother.”

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“My family and my children have been lucky to have so many advantages that other families and children do not,” she wrote in her letter to the court. “And yet I committed a crime so that my son could have another advantage, an unfair and illegal one. It was a terrible thing to do.”

Buckingham is the 11th parent sentenced in the college admissions scandal, which made headlines when actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin were found to have circumvented admissions protocol for the benefit of their own children.

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Huffman recently served 11 days in prison (of a 14-day sentence). Loughlin is awaiting trial.