Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, remain confident the charges they face from the college admissions scandal could be dropped, according to a report from Us Weekly magazine.
An unnamed source told Us Weekly that Loughlin and Giannulli are “more steadfast than ever that they did nothing illegal” in the college admissions scandal and the charges will soon be dropped.
The source said: “Lori’s lawyers feel they have a very strong chance of having the charges dismissed because prosecutors withheld key evidence that (ringleader) Rick Singer was pressured by the FBI to lie in the course of his conversations with Lori. It was entrapment, misleading a defendant so that Rick could get a favorable sentence for his role. Rick was the mastermind in all of this.”
The confidence comes as the couple’s defense asks for the charges to be dismissed because the team suggests federal prosecutors forced mastermind Singer to lie about Loughlin and Giannulli’s involvement in the scandal, according to my report for the Deseret News.
Singer had reportedly taken notes that said prosecutors asked him to lie.
According to NBC News, Singer’s notes say federal investigators “fabricated evidence to create the false impression that defendants knowingly paid bribes to corrupt insiders, rather than made legitimate donations to help their children’s chances of admission.”
U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton, who is overseeing the college admissions scandal case, said the notes were “serious and disturbing.”
He wrote, “The court considers the allegations in Singer’s October notes to be serious and disturbing. While government agents are permitted to coach cooperating witnesses during the course of an investigation, they are not permitted to suborn the commission of a crime.”
Loughlin’s team — if the case isn’t dropped — plans to “grill Rick Singer on the stand,” the source told Us Weekly. “Singer could actually become a witness for the defense even though he has been cooperating with the feds.”
Loughlin and her husband are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes so their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose Giannulli, could be crew recruits for the University of Southern California. The couple pleaded not guilty.