Lori Loughlin Freed After 2-Month Prison Stint

LOS ANGELES, CA — Actress Lori Loughlin on Monday completed her latest role as a federal prisoner for her part in the star-studded college admissions scandal.

The actress was released Monday after serving a two-month sentence at a low-security federal camp in Northern California for paying $500,000 in bribes to get her daughters admitted to USC as crew team recruits, even though neither girl played the sport. The actress, whose designer husband Mossimo Giannulli remains locked up, was one of the most famous among dozens of rich and powerful parents who bribed and cheated to get their children into elite schools.

Loughlin, 56, and Giannulli pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston in May to paying the admitted mastermind of the scheme, college admissions counselor Rick Singer, half a million dollars to get daughters Isabella Rose Giannulli and Youtuber Olivia Jade accepted into USC.

As part of the scheme, they sent fake crew recruiting profiles to Singer that included bogus credentials, medals and photos of one of their daughters on a rowing machine. Neither daughter is now enrolled at USC. Jade recently gave her first interview expressing shame and remorse for her behavior.
Loughlin and Giannulli had maintained their innocence for months, vowing to fight the charges. Their stance made them the most high-profile of the parents to deny culpability, and it may have contributed to them both getting longer sentences than other parents who were quick to admit guilt.

A Bureau of Prisons website confirmed that Loughlin was released early Monday from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, east of San Francisco. The "Full House" actress turned herself in on Oct. 31.

It is the same lockup where actress Felicity Huffman served 11 days of a two-week sentence in October 2019 for paying to have a proctor correct her daughter's answers on a college-entrance exam.

Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that the couple "involved both their daughters 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."

According to the memo, evidence shows that Giannulli, 57, was the more active participant.

Giannulli reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, in Santa Barbara County, on Nov. 19 to begin his five-month term.

More than 50 people have been charged in the probe, which investigators dubbed operation "Varsity Blues." Of 38 parents charged, 26 have pleaded guilty and received sentences ranging from the two weeks given to Huffman to a nine-month term imposed on Doug Hodge, former head of a Newport Beach-based bond management firm.

Loughlin was sentenced in August along with her husband, who was handed a five-month term. The actress was also ordered to pay a $150,000 fine and serve two years of supervised release with 100 hours of community service, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Along with his prison term, Giannulli was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and serve two years of supervised release with 250 hours of community service.

Loughlin told the court that she had "made an awful decision. I went along with a plan to give my daughters an unfair advantage in the college admissions process."

After a year of insisting on their innocence, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, while her husband pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and honest services wire and mail fraud.

Singer pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government's investigation. He is awaiting sentencing, expected sometime next year.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.