Alec Baldwin: Felicity Huffman does not deserve prison time over college admissions scandal

Alec Baldwin says he believes actress Felicity Huffman and dozens of others arrested in this year's college admissions bribery scandal do not deserve prison time.

"I don't think anyone involved in the college fraud cases should go to prison. That includes past cases as well. Community service, fines, yes. But prison time, no," the three-time Emmy winner, 61, tweeted Wednesday, a day after Huffman, 56, the first parent sentenced in the case, reported to prison. She had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, for paying $15,000 to have her eldest daughter’s SAT scores doctored, and was sentenced Sept. 13 to two weeks incarceration, 250 hours of community service, one year's probation and a $30,000 fine.

"My heart goes out to Felicity, [her actor husband] Bill Macy and their family," the Amityville-born, Massapequa-raised Baldwin added. Huffman is serving her time at the federal prison in Dublin, California, outside San Francisco.

Baldwin received almost uniform disagreement among commenters, with one tweeting, "This opinion seems tone deaf. If they can afford hundreds of thousands of $$ to get their kids in, how will a 'fine' be a deterrent? Even the current risk of jail WASN'T." Responded Baldwin, "Community service is better. The demonization of wealth in this country is mind blowing. A country built on both freedoms and commerce. Now, all success is scrutinized. Merely to succeed, especially financially, invites scrutiny, judgment, abuse."

Writer-producer Michael Colton (2014's "Penguins of Madagascar," 2018's "A Futile and Stupid Gesture") in turn noted to Baldwin, "Or, just spitballing here, maybe they were demonized not because of their wealth but because they broke the law?"

In response to a comment comparing the relative leniency toward Huffman with the five-year sentence handed down last year to Crystal Mason, an African-American woman in Texas who inadvertently cast an uncounted provisional ballot in 2016 despite her felony conviction, Baldwin said she "should not have gone to prison either."

But according to Entertainment Tonight, Huffman won't actually serve 14 days. A Federal Bureau of Prisons representative told the entertainment website that the actress would only spend 13 days in the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin because of a one-day credit for time served when she was originally arrested in March. Her projected release date is Oct. 27.

Another high-profile parent in the case, Hauppauge-raised former "Full House" star Lori Loughlin, is free on bail after pleading not guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges.