Lori Loughlin and husband plead guilty in college scam, now it’s up to judge to accept or deny deals

Everywhere she looks, everywhere she goes — she’s now an admitted felon.

“Full House” star Lori Loughlin, 55, pleaded guilty Friday in the college admissions bribery scandal after more than a year of fighting charges.

“Has anyone attempted to force you to plead guilty here this morning,” U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton asked the actress over video during the 40-minute Zoom hearing.

“No one has forced me to plead guilty, your honor,” Loughlin answered.

A few minutes later, the clerk asked Loughlin for her new plea to the first count of her indictment, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

“Guilty,” Loughlin responded.

Loughlin’s fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, 56, also changed his plea to “guilty” Friday.

In this Feb. 28, 2019 photo, actress Lori Loughlin, center, poses with daughters Olivia Jade Giannulli, left, and Isabella Rose Giannulli at the 2019 "An Unforgettable Evening" in Beverly Hills, Calif.
In this Feb. 28, 2019 photo, actress Lori Loughlin, center, poses with daughters Olivia Jade Giannulli, left, and Isabella Rose Giannulli at the 2019 "An Unforgettable Evening" in Beverly Hills, Calif.


In this Feb. 28, 2019 photo, actress Lori Loughlin, center, poses with daughters Olivia Jade Giannulli, left, and Isabella Rose Giannulli at the 2019 "An Unforgettable Evening" in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Chris Pizzello/)

Under their specialized deals, the spouses agreed with prosecutors that Loughlin should serve two months in prison and Giannulli should five months.

During the Zoom hearing with more than 200 remote attendees, the celebrity couple conceded prosecutors in Boston had enough evidence to prove they conspired to pay $500,000 to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as fake crew team recruits.

Loughlin sat quietly next to her lawyer Sean Berkowitz as U.S. Attorney Eric Rosen described the emails and recorded phone calls amassed against her.

Her eyes widened with apparent surprise when Rosen said prosecutors had a text message she sent to her younger daughter in January 2018 that cautioned the teen against saying “too much” to her college counselor about USC being her top choice because it might raise a red flag.

But when the judge asked if Loughlin disagreed with anything Rosen said, she replied, “No, your honor.”

According to her pact with prosecutors, Loughlin agreed her sentence should include the two-month prison stint, a $150,000 fine, 100 hours of community service and two years of supervised release.

In new photos released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts on April 10, Olivia Jade Giannulli is seen with her face blurred posing on an indoor rowing machine. Giannulli and her sister Isabella, led by their parents Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, were accused of faking athletic career as rowers to get into the University of Southern California in 2019.


In new photos released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts on April 10, Olivia Jade Giannulli is seen with her face blurred posing on an indoor rowing machine. Giannulli and her sister Isabella, led by their parents Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, were accused of faking athletic career as rowers to get into the University of Southern California in 2019. (U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts/)

Giannulli agreed to five months behind bars, a $250,000 fine, 250 hours of community service and two years of supervised release.

Judge Gorton now has the final say on approving or denying the deals after reading the couple’s pre-sentencing reports due in the coming weeks.

“If I decide to reject the plea agreements, you will then have an opportunity to withdraw your plea and change it to not guilty,” he said Friday morning.

The judge said he found Loughlin and Giannulli “competent and capable” enough to enter their new pleas and set their separate sentencing hearings for Aug. 21.

Giannulli’s lawyer asked for an earlier date of July 30, saying the couple seeks “finality,” but Gorton only promised to take the request “under advisement.”

“The pleas have been accepted provisionally, but now it’s up to the judge to decide whether he’ll go along with the joint recommendation. Maybe he’ll say, ‘I think Ms. Loughlin should get three months.’ Then she’ll talk to her lawyer and decide to take it or not,” Brad Bailey, a former federal prosecutor in Boston, told the Daily News Friday.

If Loughlin or Giannulli withdraw their pleas, prosecutors wouldn’t be able to mention their flip-flopping to jurors, he said.

“I think it’s likely he’s going to accept it,” Bailey said of Judge Gorton. “He’s likely to say this is the product of negotiations with the parties and it’s not out of line with the other sentences in the case.”

The celebrity spouses are the 23rd and 24th parents to plead guilty in the sprawling case dubbed Operation Varsity Blues.

The longest sentence so far imposed was the nine months given to retired bond bigwig Douglas Hodge.

Hodge paid $525,000 to get two of his seven kids into the University of Southern California as fake soccer and football team recruits.

He also paid $325,000 to a Georgetown University coach to have his oldest daughter and son admitted to the elite school as tennis recruits, prosecutors said.

As Loughlin’s case progressed, sources reportedly told People magazine the actress regretted not striking a deal early on.

Former “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman, the other high-profile actress arrested in the sting, was one of the first to admit guilt.

She stood in a courtroom last May and tearfully confessed to paying $15,000 to rig her older daughter’s college entrance exam.

She was sentenced to 14 days behind bars in September, reported to jail in October and was released two days early.

After Loughlin and Giannulli made it clear they intended to fight their initial charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wife fraud, prosecutors added additional counts of money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery.

The couple hired a high-powered team of lawyers, claimed the FBI pressured scam mastermind Rick Singer to lie and even convinced a judge federal officials made judgment errors when it came to sharing possibly exculpatory evidence.

But their attempts to overturn the charges or at least postpone their fall trial date failed.

With jury selection slated to start in a matter of months, the couple caved.

The government agreed to drop the money laundering and bribery charges in exchange for their guilty pleas.

“That dismissal is a huge concession,” Bailey told The News.

He said it’s possible prosecutors felt “somewhat chastened” by Gorton’s statements he found the government’s delay in handing over some evidence “irresponsible and misguided.”

“Maybe there was a sense of, ‘Lets just cut our losses here and get the highest-profile defendants left to plead. Maybe that will be what unplugs the logjam with rest of the remaining ones,'” he said.

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