“Full House” actress Lori Loughlin and her husband have agreed to plead guilty to U.S. charges that they tried to fraudulently win their children’s admission to the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.
Loughlin, 55, and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, 56, have agreed to serve two months and five months in prison, respectively, under plea agreements filed in federal court in Boston. They are expected to plead guilty on Friday.
Lawyers for the couple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Loughlin and Giannulli are among 53 people charged with involvement in a scheme where wealthy parents conspired with a California college admissions consultant to use bribery and other fraud to secure the admission of their children to top schools.
The consultant, William “Rick” Singer, pleaded guilty last year to running a scheme to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams and use bribery to secure the admission of various parents’ children to schools as fake athletic recruits.
Prosecutors allege Loughlin and Giannulli agreed with Singer to pay $500,000 in bribes to have their two daughters named as fake recruits to the University of Southern California crew team.
The couple was scheduled to face trial in October alongside several other parents charged in the admissions scandal. Their lawyers previously contended their clients did not know their money was used for bribes rather than university donations.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
