[ad_1]
BOSTON (AP) – Actress Lori Loughlin and her stylist husband, Mossimo Giannulli, plead not guilty to having participated in the vast corruption swindle at the universities, according to court papers filed Monday.
The couple are accused of paying $ 500,000 in bribes to have their daughters admitted to the University of Southern California as recruits, even if they are not female rowers either.
They were among the 50 people accused last month in the scandal that involved elite schools across the country, including Stanford, Georgetown and Yale.
Loughlin, who acted as Aunt Becky in the sitcom "Full House", and Giannulli did not publicly comment on the charges against them.
Loughlin and Giannulli have waived their right to appear for indictment in the Boston Federal Court and have pleaded not guilty to two charges against them, their lawyers said in court documents. The judge granted their request not to appear.
Thirty-three wealthy parents were charged in what the authorities have called the biggest case of college admissions ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice. 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.
Authorities say Loughlin and Giannulli helped create fake sports profiles for their girls by sending Singer photos of their teens posing on rowing machines. After the admission of their eldest daughter to the USC, the authorities announced to Giannulli, whose Mossimo clothes were until recently a Target brand, sent to Singer an e-mail with the subject "Troyan happiness", the thanking for his "efforts and his end result!"
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.
Prosecutors have added a charge of money laundering conspiracy against Loughlin, Giannulli and more than a dozen other parents who are still fighting in the case, which increase the pressure on them to plead guilty.
Several other relatives who were charged with Loughlin and Giannulli last week also filed court documents citing pleas of not guilty.
Each of the charges that Loughlin and Giannulli could be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of up to 20 years, although the primary offenders would receive only a small fraction of that sentence if convicted .
Acting partner Felicity Huffman, who starred in "Desperate Housewives" and another 12 ABC parents, last week announced that she had pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit postal fraud and honest service fraud. 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.
____
Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://www.twitter.com/aedurkinricher
[ad_2]
Source link