Actress Lori Loughlin, who’s in trouble over allegedly paying a bribe to get her daughters into USC, apparently thought what she did was along the lines of making a donation for construction of a library.
People magazine quotes a legal source saying of the 55-year-old “Fuller House” star: “Lori is remorseful, and she has definite regrets.”
The source adds: “She’s embarrassed and hurt, and she knows that her reputation has been ruined for life. But she also believes the allegations against her aren’t true.”
“She honestly didn’t think what she was doing was any different than donating money for a library or athletic field,” the source adds. “That’s the crux of why she pleaded not guilty.”
Loughlin and her fashion-designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, 56, are accused of paying $500,000 to William “Rick” Singer to help get daughters Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose into the university. Singer has pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and obstruction of justice.
Loughlin and Giannulli pleaded not guilty in April to charges of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy, and are scheduled to appear in court Aug. 27.
I don’t believe she is that naïve.
Naive? Why? That sort of activity has been around since the beginning of education. Every “institution of higher learning” has “memorials”, etc., due to donations… made because someone wanted their kid in a school.
Tired of people hiding behind the “I didn’t know it was a crime,” defense. It’s a crime and she along with the others should go to jail.
If you are going to donate that kind of money to a University, you make the check out to the University. From my own experience with smaller 6-figure donations to a Big Ten school, the President of the University and the Dean of the College you are donating to, or the Athletic Director, if it is a sports donation, are going to meet with you personally to thank you for the donation. They want to keep those donors in their Rolodex. Pretending that she doesn’t expect or know that is naive. These stories of donations by celebrities are in the news at least every month. And there is plenty of publicity around those. She can’t be that ignorant.
She’s totally disregarding the fake rowing photos of her daughters that were taken and submitted to USC in order to secure a phony scholarship. If that “donation” excuse is the best line she’s feeding to the judge and jury then Aunt Becky and her designer hubby are going to serve significant jail time! At least Felicity Huffman admitted her guilt and will deal with the consequences.
She’s totally disregarding the fake rowing photos of her daughters that were taken and submitted to USC in order to secure a phony scholarship. If that “donation” excuse is the best line she’s feeding to the judge and jury then Aunt Becky and her designer hubby are going to serve significant jail time! At least Felicity Huffman admitted her guilt and will deal with the consequences.
for sure she knew what she was doing (bribe/donation for admittance),…
that said, seems folks seem to have been donating buildings and similar, and surprise surprise, their kid also got into the school.
while the flow of where the cash was flowing is different, in principle the same idea.
I bet the “normal” “donation” route probably costs like $10M, but singer maybe convinced her that the “discounted” $500k route was a viable option. the first is “legal through obfuscation”, the second is definitely illegal, but to me principley the same.
if I had the spare cash i’d have no problems with “donating” to get my kid into college of choice… except i’d make sure it was with the school president or similar, rather than some 3rd party.