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BOSTON (AP) – Actress "Full House" Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded not guilty Monday to the charge of having paid $ 500,000 in bribes. de-wine to bring their daughters to the University of Southern California.
The couple is one of 50 parents, sports coaches and other personalities involved in a vast academic scam that has resulted in elite schools across the country, such as Stanford, Georgetown and Yale.
Loughlin and Giannulli on Monday filed court documents waiving their right to appear in court and pleading not guilty to the two charges against them. The judge granted their requests, which means that they will not have to go to the federal court in Boston to be brought to justice.
Thirty-three wealthy parents were indicted last month in what the authorities have described as the largest case of college admissions ever prosecuted by the Justice Department. They are accused of paying Rick Singer admissions consultant for rigging standardized test scores and for bribing college coaches and other insiders to get their kids to school.
Loughlin and Giannulli are accused of paying bribes for their daughters to be designated as USC crew recruits, even though none of them are nabbed. is a rower. Authorities say Loughlin and Giannulli helped create fake sports profiles for teenagers by sending Singer photos of their teens posing on rowing machines.
After their eldest daughter was admitted to the USC, the authorities announced that Giannulli, whose Mossimo clothes had long been a Target brand, had sent Singer an e-mail with the theme "Troy Happiness", thanking him of his "efforts and his end result!"
Loughlin, who acted as Aunt Becky in the sitcom "Full House", and Giannulli did not publicly comment on the charges against them.
Their daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli – a social media star associated with a popular channel on YouTube – was pulled off the market with cosmetics retailer Sephora and hair products company TRESemme after her parents' arrest.
Last week's prosecutors added a money-laundering conspiracy charge against Loughlin, Giannulli and more than a dozen parents who are still fighting over the case, which makes them more likely to plead guilty . Several other relatives who were charged with Loughlin and Giannulli also filed court documents establishing not guilty pleas.
Each of the charges against Loughlin and Giannulli is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, although first-time offenders receive only a small fraction of that sentence if they are convicted.
Actress actress Felicity Huffman, who starred in ABC's "Desperate Housewives", and twelve other parents announced last week that they had agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge in order to commit a crime. Postal fraud and honest services. Huffman is scheduled to appear in Boston on May 21 to plead his case.
Prosecutors said they would seek a prison sentence in the next four to ten months for Huffman, accused of paying $ 15,000 to improve his daughter's SAT score.
On Friday, a former director of a Florida preparatory school pleaded guilty to having passed student entrance exams, or corrected their answers, as part of the scam. Prosecutors have announced that they would be seeking between 33 and 41 months in jail for Mark Riddell, a Harvard graduate who oversaw the preparation for entrance exams at the University of IMG Academy.
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Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://www.twitter.com/aedurkinricher
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