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If Lori Loughlin weren’t already under enough pressure as she faces trial in the college admissions scandal, the TV actress reportedly is weighing a new plea offer, but one that comes with an extremely heavy price.
If Loughlin, 55, pleads guilty ahead of her pretrial hearing in January, prosecutors may be willing to recommend that a federal judge sentence her to 10 years in prison — far less than the potential 50-year sentence she is currently facing, a source has told Us Weekly.
But taking the deal means she would have to testify against her husband and co-defendant, Mossimo Giannulli, the insider added to Us Weekly.
But Loughlin isn’t inclined to provide information to federal authorities about Giannulli, who is the father of her two daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella. For one thing, doing so would break the commitment she made in court that she and her husband would present “a united front” as they fight the charges against them.
In fact, Loughlin “refuses” to go along with such an arrangement, the source told Weekly.
“The stress is only mounting,” the source added.
Loughlin and Giannulli, 56, are both charged with fraud, money laundering and bribery in the nationwide college admissions bribery scheme.
The Bel Air couple are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer and his alleged accomplices at the University of Southern California to get Olivia Jade and Isabella admitted to the prestigious Los Angeles college, court documents show. The alleged scheme involved Loughlin and Giannulli providing photos of Olivia Jade and Isabella on rowing machines so that the sisters could be falsely portrayed as crew team recruits to USC admissions officials.
The couple also wired a total of $400,000 to the Key Worldwide Foundation, Singer’s education nonprofit, after both daughters received their acceptance letters. The indictment alleges that Singer established the foundation in order to hide bribes he received from many of the 35 wealthy parents who paid him to facilitate their children’s admission to top U.S. colleges, either by fraudulently designating them as athletic recruits or by having their SAT and ACT scores illegally boosted.
A former federal prosecutor has said Loughlin and Giannulli should also worry that their daughters could be charged in the case. Neama Rahmani said in an interview with this news organization that there is “sufficient evidence” that Olivia Jade and Isabella “knew of the fraudulent conspiracy, agreed to participate in it, and took overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.”
“By pushing their case to trial, Loughlin and Giannulli are also exposing their children to criminal liability,” said Rahmani, who is in private practice but who tried fraud and drug cases while in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego from 2010 to 2012.
According to insider sources talking to Us Weekly and other outlets, Loughlin has gone back and forth about whether or not to take a plea deal, ever since she and her husband were first charged in March.
After she and her husband refused to take a plea deal in early October, they and other parents, including several from the Bay Area, were hit with new bribery charges.
Loughlin had considered entering a guilty plea but “backed out” due to Giannulli’s insistence that they fight the charges, Us Weekly previously reported.
“She had been talking to her lawyers about it, but her friends and family were encouraging her to pursue a plea deal. She’s only listening to Mossimo though,” a source told Us Weekly at the time.
Another source told Us Weekly that Giannulli somehow thought that taking a plea deal “would ruin both of their careers” — as if enough damage hasn’t already been done to them and to their daughters’ reputations.
After the couple were among dozens of wealthy parents originally charged in the “Operation Varsity Blues” case in March, the Hallmark Channel and Netflix cut ties with Loughlin. Netflix was producing “Fuller House,” a reboot of “Full House,” the family sitcom on which Loughlin made her name playing wholesome Aunt Becky.
In an earlier People report, a source said that Loughlin regrets not taking a plea deal.
“Of course she does, because it would have been easier,” the source told People.
Those regrets welled after Loughlin saw fellow TV star Felicity Huffman serve just 11 days in a minimum-security camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin for her role in the case. Huffman pleaded guilty to paying Singer $15,000 to have her oldest daughter’s SAT score illegally boosted.
