Charges Against Lori Loughlin in College Admissions Case

Additional charges against Lori Loughlin, her husband, Mossimo Giannuli, and also 11 of the 15 parents charged in the college admissions scandal returned by a Boston grand jury.

After Felicia Hoffman sentenced to 14 days in jail she is already serving her sentence in prison, but Lori Loughlin has been hanging tough and is maintaining her innocence.

The federal prosecutors clearly want to get her to plead guilty rather than proceed to trial and they have been turning up the heat.

Lori Loughlin was among 11 wealthy parents hit with new charges in the college admissions scandal, which relate to efforts by her and her husband Mossimo Giannulli to get their children admitted to the University of Southern California by having them falsely designated as athletic recruits, “with little or no regard for their athletic abilities, prosecutors announced.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office charges against Lori Loughlin and nine other defendants are “to commit federal program bribery by bribing employees of the University of Southern California (USC) to facilitate their children’s admission and generally college admission fraud.

Bribes charge details

In exchange for the bribes, employees of the university allegedly designated the defendants’ children as athletic recruits, with little or no regard for their athletic abilities, or as members of other favored admissions categories.”

“Today’s charges are the result of an ongoing investigation in the nationwide college admissions case,” stated Andrew Lelling, the U.S. attorney in Boston. “Our goal from the beginning has been to hold the defendants fully accountable for corrupting the college admissions process through cheating, bribery, and fraud. The superseding indictments will further that effort.”

The grand jury also returned a superseding charge against seven university athletic officials.

Nevertheless, Known as federal programs bribery, these new charges Against Lori Loughlinthe and other parents defrauded an institution that receives federal funds by bribing employees to admit their children as athletic recruits.

New charges against parents like Lori Loughlin

The new charges in the District of Massachusetts are applied only to parents like Loughlin who have opted not to plead guilty to the initial indictment. Parents who’ve already pleaded guilty or agreed to pleas were spared additional charges.

The new charges may not have come as much of a surprise since prosecutors had warned parents who didn’t plead guilty that they could face extra charges, attorneys involved in the case stated.

Conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery is punishable by up to five years in prison. The charge of federal programs bribery is defined as a bribe of anything valued of at least $5,000 at an organization that receives more than $10,000 from the federal government, which would include USC and other universities implicated in the scam.

Loughlin and Giannulli are accused of paying $500,000 to a fake charity to get their two daughters accepted into USC by falsely designating them as crew team recruits. Their daughters, Olivia Jade Giannulli and Isabella Rose Giannulli are not currently enrolled at USC, the university announced Monday.

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