BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Lori Loughlin, Mossimo Giannulli, and a group of other parents accused of paying bribes to get their children into the University of Southern California will be going to trial in early October.
The court date was set by Judge Nathaniel Gordon during a status conference in the college admissions scandal case in Boston Federal Court Thursday.
Late Wednesday night, Loughlin and Giannulli filed a motion to delay their trial because of newly released notes from scheme mastermind Rick Singer, where he said the government directed him to lie and say the parents knew the payments they were making were bribes, not legitimate donations.
Loughlin and Giannulli said this amounts to exculpatory evidence—that they thought what they did was legal.
The government responded to the new motion, saying calling something a donation doesn't make it a donation—but said they should have released the notes from Singer earlier.
Judge Gordon stressed the importance of moving things along in a timely manner, saying he was not inclined to postpone anything.
The October trial, which Gordon said he hoped would be resolved within a month, includes all the defendants who allegedly paid to get their kids into USC as sports recruits—not parents involved with cheating on tests or making payments to other schools.
Loughlin and Giannulli are accused of paying $500,000 dollars to get their daughters into the University of Southern California as fake crew recruits. The couple had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Singer, as well as some of the parents, did plead guilty. Among those parents was actress Felicity Huffman. She was sentenced to 14 days behind bars for paying to have her daughter's SAT answers corrected.
Earlier this week, Hot Pockets heiress Michelle Janavs was sentenced to 5 months in prison. She pleaded guilty to working with Singer to help her daughters on the ACT, and build a fake athletic profile for her daughter in the college admissions scandal.
WBZ NewsRadio's Madison Rogers (@_madisonrogers) reports
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