Annapurna TV is the first to obtain rights to Accepted, the forthcoming book about the admission scandal from the Wall Street Journal reporters Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz, according to The Hollywood Reporter. D.V. DeVincentis will adapt the book as limited series. His previous credits include writing The People v. OJ Simpson, and the features films High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank, Variety reports. The book details the admission scandal in which 50 people, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, Loughlin’s husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli, and film financier Bill McGlashan, were indicted in a plan to influence the admission of their children into some of the top schools. College officials and athletic coaches were indicted as well. The book will be published by Portfolio, a division of Penguin Random House.
The case, “Operation Varsity Blues,” saw parents indicted for paying large sums of money in order to have their children admitted with fake athletic backgrounds, to have someone else take the SATs in a student’s place or bribing test administrators to correct the student’s answers. The alleged ringleader, William Singer “Rick”, ran a college admissions business and arranged the transactions.
Huffman has said she intends to plead guilty to paying $15,000 to have someone else take the SAT instead of her daughter, falsely reporting the payment as a charitable contribution. Loughlin and Giannulli, who allegedly paid about $500,000 in bribes to help their daughters get into the University of Southern California, have pleaded not guilty; however, they were later charged with a separate count of money laundering conspiracy (with 14 other parents).
After the indictments, Loughlin lost roles on Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart and Garage Sale Mystery movie series and will not return for the final season of Netflix’s Fuller House. A Netflix film starring Huffman had its release date pushed from April to August, while When They See Us, a limited series from Ava DuVernay that features Huffman, will keep its late May date.
Sue Naegle, Ali Krug, and Patrick Chu will produce for Annapurna Television.