Lori Loughlin Sentenced To Two Months In Prison Following College Admissions Scandal

Aug 20, 2020

Federal prosecutors have formally requested that on Friday, actress Lori Loughlin, 56, be sentenced to two months in prison while her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, 57, be sentenced to five months in prison for their roles in the 2019 college admissions scandal.

Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli will be sentenced on Friday for participating in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. According to Vanity Fair, prosecutors are making their final pitch to Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton for their sentencing recommendations. Justin D. O’Connell, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston, has laid out the argument in a memo for Judge Gorton: Giannulli should get more prison time than Loughlin after they together paid a total of $500,000 to get their daughters into the University of Southern California as bogus crew recruits.

Prosecutors recommended five months for Giannulli and just two months for Loughlin when they each flipped their pleas to guilty for one count of fraud in May. Giannulli was, O’Connell argues, the more “active participant in the scheme,” since he made the payments and took the infamous photos of his daughters posing with a rowing machine.

In the charging documents from last year, it was apparent that the couple's daughter, 20-year-old Olivia Jade had been CC’d on at least one email with the organizer of the scheme, William “Rick” Singer. The memo, according to Daily Mail, adds that Olivia’s parents guided her through the process, especially regarding how to handle a potential whistleblower: an unnamed counselor at Olivia's high school. The document also describes Loughlin as “complicit” in the fraud, accusing her of “eagerly enlisting Singer a second time for her younger daughter, and coaching her daughter not to 'say too much' to her high school’s legitimate college counselor, lest he catch onto their fraud.”

When Olivia asked her mom if she should list USC as a top choice for college, Loughlin called the counselor a “weasel” who could “meddle” in the plan. She advised her daughter, “Don’t say too much to that man.”

The prosecution reiterated that Giannulli was the main communicator with Singer and that he had intimidated a counselor who questioned Olivia’s recruitment to USC, appearing at the school to confront the man over, in the counselor’s words, “why I was trying to ruin or get in the way of their opportunities.” Singer’s contact within the athletic department left a voicemail with Singer and asked him to tell parents not to show up unannounced on school campuses or to yell at counselors (the administrator has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to commit racketeering, fraud, and bribery, whereas Singer has pleaded guilty to four felonies).

Giannulli and Loughlin are scheduled to be sentenced in Boston on Friday, which will mark the beginning of the end for most famous of those parents implicated in the college admissions scandal.

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