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Federal prosecutors on Monday recommended that Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, a celebrity couple trapped in dismantling widespread fraud in the college admissions process, be sentenced to two and five months, respectively, in prison .
The request was in line with an agreement reached by the US attorney’s office in Boston with Loughlin and Giannulli in May. They each pleaded guilty to one count of fraud, admitting that they passed off their two daughters as promising rowers and slipped them into USC with the blessing of a corrupt administrator. Prosecutors said they would seek prison terms of two months for Loughlin and five. months for Giannulli.
The judge in charge of the case, U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is not bound by the prosecution’s recommendation and may impose punishment above or below. The couple are expected to be sentenced on Friday. As of Monday afternoon, their lawyers had not yet filed their own conviction papers.
Justin D. O’Connell, an assistant US attorney in Boston, wrote in a note that Giannulli, who works as a fashion designer, deserves a harsher sentence than his wife.
As the “most active participant in the scheme,” Giannulli communicated regularly with William “Rick” Singer, a Newport Beach consultant and fraud leader, O’Connell wrote. He took photos of his daughters posing on rowing gear used in fake recruiting profiles, made payments to Singer and a USC account that validated their admission, and confronted a counselor from their daughters’ high school who was skeptical of the girls’ athletic prowess. , Wrote O’Connell.
He singled out Giannulli for “steaming up an honest high school counselor who tried to do the right thing” by urging Gorton to jail the creator. Loughlin, a famous television actress, was less active in the mechanics of the fraud but “nonetheless fully complicit,” O’Connell wrote.
In his memo, O’Connell recounted an exchange that had not been previously reported: After the couple’s youngest daughter was admitted to USC in late 2017 as a purported rower, she spoke to his parents about “how to avoid the possibility that a school counselor would disrupt their plan,” the prosecutor wrote. Listing USC as his top choice “could be a flag for the weasel to mingle,” Loughlin noted, according to the memo. Giannulli called him a “curious bastard,” with an additional expletive, the memo reads.
Their concern was justified. Warned that Giannullis’ daughter had been reported as a sports rookie, the advisor told USC he “strongly doubted she was involved in the crew,” prompting a confrontation with Giannulli, the memo reads. Prosecutors had previously filed the adviser’s notes on the court meeting.
Giannulli showed up unexpectedly in high school, insisted his daughter was a rower and demanded to know “why I was trying to ruin or hamper their opportunities,” the adviser wrote.
Later that day, a USC administrator now tasked with approving the girl’s admission in exchange for a bribe left Singer a voicemail message, court records show.
“I don’t want the – the parents to get upset and mess around with the school at all,” said administrator Donna Heinel, according to a transcript filed in court. Parents couldn’t walk around high school campuses, “yelling at counselors,” she told Singer. “It’ll shut everything down – it’ll shut it all down.”
Heinel, who was sacked by USC after her arrest last March, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to commit racketeering, fraud and corruption. Singer pleaded guilty to four crimes and cooperated closely with federal authorities. He has not yet been convicted.
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