US News

Lori Loughlin, college admissions scandal parents urge judge to drop charges

BOSTON — “Full House” actress Lori Loughlꦍin, her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, and other prominent parents urged a judge Wednesday to dismiss charges agai✱nst them in the college admissions bribery case, accusing prosecutors of “extraordinary” misconduct.

Def👍ense attorneys for the famous couple and other parents still fighting the charges say the case cannot stand because investigators bullied their informant into lying and then concealed evidence that woul𒀰d bolster the parents’ claims of innocence.

“The extraordinary government 𝓡misconduct presented in this case threatens grꦑave harm to defendants and the integrity of this proceeding. That misconduct cannot be ignored,” the lawyers wrote.

The US Attorney’s Offic𝕴e in Boston declined 🐼to comment Wednesday.

♋on charges that they paid $500,000 to get their daughters into the University of Southern California as crew recruits even though neither girl was a rower. Prosecutors say they sn🉐apped photos of the girls sitting on rowing machines to help make fake athletic profiles that portrayed them as star athletes.

Six other wealthy parents accused of par﷽ticipating in the scheme will stand trial alongside them. Another six ��parents are scheduled to face trial in January.

The defense says prosecutors withheld evidence that would support the parents’ argument that they believed the payments♚ were legitimate donations that would benefit the schools, rather than bribes for coaches or officials. The evidence — notes fro🗹m the phone of the scheme’s admitted mastermind, admissions consultant Rick Singer — .

Singer wrote in the notes that FBI agents yelled at him♈ and told him to lie to get parents to say things in recorded phone calls that could be used against them. Singer wrote that FBI agents told him to say that he told parents the payments wer💃e bribes.

“They continue to ask me to tell a fib and not restate what I told my clients as to where their money was going — to the program not the coach and that it was a donation and they want it to be a payment,” Singer wꦜrote, according to the filing.

The defense says the notes show that agents bullied Singer into fabricating🌼 evidence and trying to trick parents into falsely agreeing that the payments were bribes.

“For government agents to coerce an informant into lying on recorded calls to generate false inculpatory evidence against investigative targets — and to then knowingly prosecute those targets using that false evidence — is governmental malfeasance of the wꦺorst kind,” the lawyers wrote.

Admissions consultant Rick Singer
Admissions consultant Rick SingerAP

Instead of immediately 𝕴handing over the notes when they first saw them in October 2018, prosecutors “buried” the evidence and repeatedly told the defense it had provided everything it was supposed to, the parents’ lawyers wrote.

The defense also accused investigators oඣf allowing Singer to delete thousands of text messages from his cellphone and then mounting an “aggressive (and highly successful) pressure cam🎃paign” to get parents to plead guilty.

“While withholding the notes and many 🦂other e𒊎xamples of material exculpatory information, the government attempted to coerce defendants into pleading guilty by threatening that if they did not, they would face additional charges,” the parents’ lawyers wrote.

Singer’s notes weren’t given to the defense until February because the government believed they weဣꦺre privileged and didn’t review them further after discovering them, prosecutors have said. Prosecutors say it doesn’t matter whether Singer called the payments bribes or donations, because it was still an illegal quid pro quo.

The defense said if the judge doesn’t dismiss the case, he should at least prevent prosecutoꦉrs from using the “tainted recordings” at trial and order a hearing to “uncover the full truth about the recordings and the government’s efforts to fabricate and conceal evidence.”

Nearly two dozen other parents have pleaded guilty in the case, including “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffma𒈔n, who was sentenced t♐o two weeks in prison for paying $15,000 to have a proctor correct her daughter’s SAT answers.