According to the US Attorney's Office in the District of Massachusetts, actress Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, have both plead guilty to the charges connecting them to the college admissions scam.
Agreed to plead guilty
The 55-year-old actress and her 56-year-old fashion designer husband had been accused of paying $500,000 to the University of Southern California last year in their attempt to get their two daughters admitted by posing as crew team recruits.
When the college admissions scam was the first brought into the light, both had to plead not guilty and stood by the plea for more than a year. The actress will be sentenced to at least two months in prison while her husband will be facing five months. It is part of their plea agreement, but the court will still have to approve it.
Aside from the plea agreement, the "Full House" actress will pay $150,000 and Giannulli will pay $250,000. Both will be on a two-year supervised release and both will do community service for 100 hours and 250 hours respectively.
The couple is said to plead guilty to the charges this Friday, May 22. The actress will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and Giannulli will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, as well as honest service wire and mail fraud.
Both had been charged last year with up to three counts of conspiracy for the scheme. US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling said that the couple will both serve prison terms and they will pay fines as part of their plea agreements.
The couple will face the consequences of their plan to undermine the process of college admissions. He added the both Loughlin and Giannulli will be held accountable for their scheme of ruining the integrity of the admissions process.
College admissions scam
The actress and her husband are just some of the famous names that were wrapped up in the scheme to cheat, bribe and lie in the college admissions, which is know across the country to be a very competitive process.
According to the authorities, the actress and the fashion designer paid the mastermind of the scheme, Rick Singer, around $500,000. Rick Singer is the USC athletic official and has received millions of dollars from dozens of parents who want to get their child admitted to the school.
The fashion designer sent Singer pictures of his daughters through email. The girls were posing on indoor rowing machines, and the pictures were used by Singer to create a fake athletic profile for the two. The university stated that the girls are no longer enrolled at the school.
The couple would have gotten 20 years in prison each if they had gone to trial and had been found guilty of the charge. According to Elie Honig, the CNN legal analyst, the stakes at trial were high for the couple because if they had gone to trial and lost they were looking at several years in prison. The couple cut their losses by cutting the pleas.
The actress and her husbands are the 23rd and the 24th parents who plead guilty in the conspiracy case. Another famous actress, Felicity Huffman, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy last year for paying $15,000 to the mastermind Rick Singer as part of a scheme to cheat on the SATs and to help boost her daughter's SAT scores. The actress served 11 days in prison after pleading guilty.
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