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Lori Loughin’s friends continue to leak to the media supposed insights about her legal strategy or her belief that she was simply a devoted parent who went overboard and who therefore doesn’t deserve jail time for her alleged role in the college admissions bribery scandal.
In the meantime, the disgraced “Full House” star can’t escape reminders of evidence that federal prosecutors have against her and her husband, fashion mogul Mossimo Giannulli.
One of those reminders came Monday after one of the couple’s co-defendants, Los Angeles businessman Devin Sloane, pleaded guilty to paying $250,000 to the scheme’s mastermind, William “Rick” Singer, to get his son admitted to the University of Southern California after being falsely designated as an athletic recruit, CBS News reported.
Loughlin, 54, and Giannulli, 55, also allegedly paid Singer $250,000 — or $500,000 total — for each of their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella, to be admitted to USC on falsified athletic credentials, according to investigators.
Aside from the USC connection, Sloane’s case has other things in common with the allegations against Loughlin and Giannulli. Notably, guidance counselors at the high schools all their children attended asked questions and raised concerns about “red flags” in the teens’ USC applications.
However, the counselors’ inquiries didn’t go very far. These counselors were effectively silenced, though they tried to act “honorably” in expressing doubts about the students’ athletic qualifications, writes Atlantic correspondent Caitlin Flanagan.
Isabella Giannulli, 20, was admitted to USC in the spring of 2017, after one of Singer’s alleged accomplices, former USC associate athletic director Donna Heinel, falsely presented her to a university subcommittee as a purported crew member, according to the complaint.
The following year, Singer allegedly worked out the same scheme with Loughlin and Giannulli on behalf of Olivia Jade, 19. In this case, Giannulli provided Singer with an “action picture,” a photo showing aspiring YouTube celebrity Olivia Jade posed on a rowing machine that would allow her to be falsely presented as a crew coxswain.
Heinel made that presentation on behalf of Olivia Jade to the subcommittee in November 2017, the complaint shows. Two weeks later, Olivia Jade received a conditional acceptance letter to USC.
However, the scheme threatened to unravel after a guidance counselor at Olivia Jade’s school, identified as Marymount High School near Bel Air, raised questions about her athletic recruitment to USC.
Singer told investigators that the counselor at the all-girls Catholic prep school did not believe that either Isabella or Olivia Jade participated in crew, “and was concerned that their applications may have contained misleading information,” according to the complaint.
The complaint also describes how Loughlin and Giannulli didn’t take kindly to the counselor’s inquiries. Giannulli went to Olivia Jade’s high school to confront the counselor and to convince him that she participated in crew.
“The counselor was acting honorably,” Flanagan wrote in the Atlantic. “Loughlin and Giannulli — if the affidavit is to be believed — were in the midst of a criminal operation. Yet instead of hanging his head in shame, Giannulli apparently roared onto the high-school campus apoplectic.”
The counselor memorialized the confrontation by sending an email to Giannulli later that day, the complaint shows. In the email, the evidently chastened counselor assured Giannulli that USC had no intention of rescinding Olivia Jade’s admission offer.
“I also shared with (the USC senior assistant director of admission) that you had visited this morning and affirmed for me that (your younger daughter) is truly a coxswain,” the counselor wrote.
That same day, Singer received a panicked voicemail from Heinel: “I just want to make sure that, you know, I don’t want the … parents getting angry and creating any type of disturbance at the school … I just don’t want anybody going into … (the daughter’s high school) you know, yelling at counselors. That’ll shut everything — that’ll shut everything down.”
Heinel’s panicked voicemail to Singer also was intended to address her concerns about the counselor at the high school Sloane’s son attended, according to the complaint.
That counselor had emailed Sloane, expressing concern about his son being designated as a water polo recruit even though the teen didn’t play the sport at the high school.
According to the complaint, Sloane, 53, actually became irate about the counselor’s inquiries, emailing to Singer: “The more I think about this, it is outrageous! They have no business or legal right considering all the students privacy issues to be calling and challenging/question (my son’s) application.”
But Heinel stepped in by emailing USC’s director of admissions and falsely said that Sloane’s son couldn’t play water polo for his high school because his school didn’t sponsor the sport, according to the complaint. Instead, Heinel wrote, the teen played for the LA Water Polo Club during the year and played internationally with a youth junior team in Europe.
“I believe the parents do have money since he is enrolled in (his high school) plus is able to travel so extensively during the summer,” wrote Heinel, who has been charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering. “He is an attack perimeter player. Thanks for (bringing this) to my attention.”
Unlike Loughlin and Giannulli, Sloane opted to not fight the charges against him. He joined fellow co-defendant and TV actress Felicity Huffman in appearing in federal court in Boston Monday to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. Sloane faces one year in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.
Singer also pleaded guilty to racketeering, money laundering and other charges; he is scheduled to be sentenced in September.
As for Loughlin and Giannulli, they decided against accepting a plea deal and plan to take their case to trial, according to reports. They each are charged with mail fraud and money-laundering. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison on each charge.
Depending on which “insider” is leaking, Loughlin either feels “confident” she will escape prison because she and her husband have a strong defense. Or, she’s scared but believes she doesn’t deserve to go to jail, because she claims that Singer didn’t inform her and her husband that they were doing anything illegal.
“(Lori and her husband) claim they were under the impression they might be breaking rules, but not laws,” a source told Entertainment Tonight last month. “They realize how serious the charges are, but feel that once the judge hears their story he will see they had no bad intentions.”
