Lori Loughlin Should Serve 2 Months in Prison for College Admissions Scandal, Prosecutors Urge Judge

Federal prosecutors are seeking a two-month prison sentence for Lori Loughlin after she and husband Mossimo Giannulli pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in connection to the nationwide college admissions scandal, In Touch can confirm. 

If the request is honored by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton, Loughlin’s fashion designer spouse, 57, would spend five months behind bars.  

“The government respectfully requests the Court impose the agreed-upon dispositions: a term of imprisonment of five months, a $250,000 fine, and 250 hours of community service for Giannulli; and a term of imprisonment of two months, a $150,000 fine, and 100 hours of community service for Loughlin,” says the sentencing memo obtained by In Touch. 

The couple previously agreed to those terms in their guilty plea deals, but they have yet to be officially sentenced. The sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place on Friday, August 21. 

“The crime Giannulli and Loughlin committed was serious. Over the course of two years, they engaged twice in [Rick] Singer’s fraudulent scheme,” prosecutors wrote in the docs. “They involved both their daughters [Isabella and Olivia] in the fraud, directing them to pose in staged photographs for use in fake athletic profiles and instructing one daughter how to conceal the scheme from her high school counselor.” 

Prosecutors noted the evidence “suggests that Giannulli was the more active participant in the scheme,” however Loughlin, 56, was “nonetheless fully complicit.” 

Prosecutors also insist the recommendations are on par with other “similarly situated defendants” from the case.

Desperate Housewives alum Felicity Huffman previously served a 14-day sentence of her own at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, after pleading guilty for her involvement in the scam. She was released in October 2019.

After initially entering a not guilty plea, the Full House alum and style icon officially pleaded guilty in May during an online hearing amid the coronavirus outbreak. Giannulli’s attorney, William Trach, requested his clients be sentenced as soon as possible because they would like “finality of this process.” 

It’s been a long road for the couple leading up to this point. Loughlin and Giannulli first found themselves in hot water back in March 2019. At the time, the dynamic duo was arrested for paying $500,000 to ensure their daughters would be admitted to the University of Southern California [USC] as crew recruits. 

Loughlin and Giannulli are both “bracing themselves for prison,” a source exclusively told In Touch in May. “It’s not going to be easy for them — especially Lori, who’s used to living very comfortably and having it all. Lori and Mossimo tried everything to get out of this, but in the end, they knew they’d lose at trial.”