Lori Loughlin Sentenced To 2 Months In Prison For College Admissions Scandal

Loughlin pled guilty earlier this year to her role in the scandal

Lori Loughlin has been sentenced for her part in the college admissions bribery scandal. During a Zoom call, the judge sentenced her to serve two months in prison. U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton accepted Loughlin’s plea deal with prosecutors in a hearing held via videoconference. Loughlin will also pay a $150,000 fine and serve 100 hours of community service.

Loughlin was arrested in March 2019 along with dozens of others (including actress Felicity Huffman, who has already served her sentence) and charged with conspiring with a for-profit consultant at the heart of the admissions scandal, to pass off her two daughters, Olivia and Isabella, as promising rowing recruits in order to get them accepted to USC.

Loughlin’s husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced earlier today to five months in prison on Friday for his role in what investigators dubbed Operation Varsity Blues. Giannulli was also sentenced to a $250,000 fine and 250 hours of community service. Both Loughlin and Giannulli were ordered to surrender Nov. 19.

Both pled guilty earlier this year and, as such, knew there would be jail time associated with their sentencing. In addition to spending time in jail, they’ll have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines as part of their plea deals.

“I deeply regret the harm that my actions have caused my daughters, my wife and others,” Giannulli said in a short statement during the hearing, according to NPR. “I take full responsibility for my conduct. I am ready to accept the consequences and move forward with the lessons I’ve learned from this experience,” he added.

In April 2019, the couple pleaded not guilty in federal court after being accused of paying a bribe worth $500,000 in exchange for securing their daughters’ admission into the University of Southern California. In all, 55 people have been charged in connection with the college admissions scheme.

“I made an awful decision. I went along with a plan to give my daughters an unfair advantage in the college admissions process and in doing so I ignored my intuition and allowed myself to be swayed from my moral compass,” she Loughlin said during her hearing. “I have great faith in God and I believe in redemption and I will do everything in my power to redeem myself and use this experience as a catalyst to do good.”

In addition to fake athletic profiles, charges were also brought for “bribing SAT and ACT exam administrators to allow a test taker … to secretly take college entrance exams in place of students or to correct the students’ answers after they had taken the exam.”

In addition to being the face of a nationwide scandal, Loughlin was fired from Hallmark where she regularly starred in their movies.

“We are saddened by the recent news surrounding the college admissions allegations,” the company said. “We are no longer working with Lori Loughlin and have stopped the development of all productions that air on the Crown Media Family Network channels involving Lori Loughlin including Garage Sale Mysteries, an independent third party production.”