*Actress Lori Loughlin was sentenced to a 2-month federal prison sentence Friday for her role in the 2019 college admissions cheating scandal.
As part of her sentence, the former Hallmark Channel star must also pay a $150,000 fine and serve 150 hours of community service, PEOPLE reports.
Friday morning, her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, also agreed to a plea deal which will see him serve a 5-month prison sentence, serve 50 hours of community service and pay a $250,000 fine.
Prosecutors agreed he was the more active parent in the scheme, in which the couple paid $500,000 to mastermind Rick Singer to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as crew recruits, even though neither of them rowed, per ABC News.
The couple was charged with bribery, money laundering conspiracy, mail and wire fraud conspiracy. Both initially pleaded not guilty before eventually agreeing to take a plea deal.
If you were a working-class or poor white woman or black or hispanic one, think you’d get two months in jail for what #LoriLaughlin did? #JusticeForRichCelebrities https://t.co/HqGjcxhVE5
— Pete Quily (@pqpolitics) August 21, 2020
In sentencing Giannulli, the judge called their actions “a breathtaking crime on the nation’s higher education system.”
“I am truly, profoundly and deeply sorry. I am ready to face the consequences and make amends,” Loughlin said during sentencing on Aug. 21. “I made an awful decision. I allowed myself to be swayed from my moral compass.”
“Here you are an admired, successful actor with a long-lasting marriage, with two healthy resilient children, more money than you could possibly need, a fairy tale life. Yet you stand before me a convicted felon. And for what,” Judge Nathaniel Gorton asked. “For the inexplicable desire to grasp even more.”
“She’s profoundly sorry,” defense attorney BJ Trach said. “Of all the parents charged in this investigation, not a single one had less involvement.”
“Giannulli’s conduct in this case evidenced a complete disregard from right and wrong,” said Assistant US Attorney Kristen Kearney. “He went ahead with this scheme not once, but twice.”
Giannulli “exposed his daughters to the scheme and allowed them to become complicit in it,” Kearney said, noting that one of the girls was instructed on “how to conceal the scheme from her high school counselor,” who Loughlin called a “weasel” and Giannulli called “nosey.”
“I deeply regret the harm that my actions have caused my daughters, my wife and others. I take full responsibility for my conduct,” said Giannulli, appearing by video conference, during the sentencing on Friday.
It’s unclear when the couple will report to prison.
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