Lori Loughlin will serve two months in prison after a US district judge approved her plea deal in thecollege admissions scandal .- Her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced to five months in prison Friday for his role in the scandal.
- The couple admitted to paying $500,000 to guarantee their daughters' admissions to the
University of Southern California as purported crew recruits. - They spent more than a year fighting charges in the scheme before pleading guilty in May.
Lori Loughlin was sentenced to two months in prison for her role in the college admissions scandal after a US district judge approved her plea deal on Friday.
Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, appeared in court on Friday in a Zoom conference calls to be sentenced. While Loughlin will spend two months behind bars, Giannulli was sentenced to five months in prison.
US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton accepted Loughlin's plea deal and ordered her to pay a $150,000 fine, do 100 hours of community service, and spend two years on supervised release after serving his prison sentence.
Giannulli was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine, do 250 hours of community service, and spend two years on supervised release.
Loughlin choked up as she made a statement before the court, in which she said she was "truly and profoundly and deeply sorry" for her role in the scheme.
"I made an awful decision. I went along with a plan to give my daughters an unfair advantage in the college admissions process," she said. "In doing so I ignored my intuition and allowed myself to be swayed from my moral compass."
"I thought I was acting out of love for my children, but in reality it undermined and diminished my daughters' abilities and accomplishments," she continued. "More broadly and more importantly, I now understand that my decisions helped exacerbate existing inequalities in society generally and the higher education system more specifically."
She said she hopes to move forward with her life after serving her prison sentence.
"I have great faith in God and I believe in redemption, and I will do everything in my power to redeem myself and to use this as a catalyst to good and give back for the rest of my life," Loughlin said.
During his own sentencing, Giannulli said he took "full responsibility" for his actions and was prepared to "move forward with the lessons I've learned from this experience."
"I deeply regret the harm that my actions have caused my daughters, my wife, and others," he said.
Giannulli and Loughlin's sentencings come more than a year after they were first indicted on charges connected to paying $500,000 to have the college admission scandal's ringleader, William "Rick" Singer, guarantee their daughters' admissions to the University of Southern California as coxswains for the school's crew team, despite never competing in the sport. The scheme included creating fake athletic profiles and falsified resumes for their daughters,
Loughlin and Giannulli pleaded guilty to their role in the scandal in May. They had spent more than a year arguing in court that they were not guilty, and just weeks before their plea they participated in a concerted push for the charges to be dropped.
Loughlin's lawyers had also tried a number of other strategies, including arguing that she and Giannulli thought their $500,000 payment was a legitimate donation to USC and saying FBI agents tried to coerce Singer into lying and concealing evidence that would bolster parents' claims of innocence.
Loughlin and Giannulli's daughters are no longer attending
Dozens of participants have already pleaded guilty
More than 50 other parents, college-athletics coaches, school administrators, and college entrance exam administers have been indicted as part of Operation Varsity Blues, and dozens of others have already pleaded guilty.
The college admissions scheme was two-pronged: When
Among those who pleaded guilty is fellow actress Felicity Huffman, who was sentenced to two weeks in prison after paying $15,000 to have her daughter's entrance exam answers falsified.
Others have faced a variety of sentences. Former Stanford University sailing coach John Vandemoer was the first person in the scheme to be sentenced — he was given one day and time served. Marjorie Klapper, who paid $15,000 to have her son's ACT answers falsified was sentenced to three weeks behind bars, as was Jane Buckingham, who paid $50,000 to have a proctor take the ACT exam for her son in 2018.
But some parents who partook in the athletic recruit scheme have faced far longer sentences.
Toby McFarlane, who paid $450,000 to secure his daughter's and son's admissions to USC as purported soccer and basketball recruits, was sentenced to six months, while Douglas Hodge, who paid more than $500,000 in bribes to facilitate the University of Southern California athletic recruitments of his daughter and one of his sons in 2013 and 2015, was handed a nine-month sentence.
Elizabeth and Manuel Henriquez, a couple from California who paid $50,000 to have their daughters' SAT and ACT exam answers falsified and $400,000 to guarantee their older daughter's admission to Georgetown University as a purported tennis recruit, also faced higher-end sentencings, with seven and six months behind bars respectively.
This article has been updated.
- Read more:
- Here's the full list of people charged in the college admissions cheating scandal, and who has pleaded guilty so far
- Here's everyone who has been sentenced in the college admissions scandal so far
- College admission scandal parents didn't realize how big the scheme was until they were all sitting in jail together and someone brought up the ringleader's name
- Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli resigned from the elite Bel-Air Country Club amid internal debate over the couple's 'irreparable reputational harm' to the club