“Full House” actor Lori Loughlin tearfully told a federal court in Boston she was “deeply sorry” for her role in the college admissions scandal that snared her and her fashion designer husband, CBS Boston reports.
Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy charges for paying a half million dollars to get their daughters into the University of Southern California as members of the crew rowing team despite neither of them ever having rowed in their lives, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
US District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton sentenced Loughlin to two months in prison and Giannulli to five months. Additionally, Loughlin must pay a $150,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service, while Giannulli’s plea deal came with a $250,000 fine and 250 hours of community service, according to CBS Boston.
“I made an awful decision,” the star said via a Zoom video conference. “I am truly, profoundly and deeply sorry. I am ready to face the consequences and make amends.”
Gorton said he hopes Loughlin spends the rest of her “charmed life” making amends.
“Here you are an admired, successful, professional actor with a long-lasting marriage, two apparently healthy, resilient children, more money than you could possibly need, a beautiful home in sunny Southern California – a fairy tale life,” he said. “Yet you stand before me a convicted felon. And for what? For the inexplicable desire to grasp even more.”
For his part, Giannulli said that he “deeply regret[s] the harm that my actions hae caused my daughters, my wife, and others. I take full responsibility for my conduct.”
Gorton said Giannulli was “motivated by hubris.”
“You certainly did know better and yet you helped sponsor a breathtaking fraud on our system of education, and involved your wife and your two daughters in cheating and faking their ways into a prestigious university,” Gorton said. “You have no excuse for your crime.”
Loughlin and Giannulli were the 23rd and 24th parents to plead guilty in the college admissions scheme, which also snared actor Felicity Huffman. Huffman pleaded guilty to paying $15,000 to rig her daughter’s entrance exam score and was sentenced to two weeks.
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[Featured image: Lori Loughlin in 2019/(AP Photo/Steven Senne)]
