Lori Loughlin gets 2 months in prison in college admissions scandal; husband will serve 5 months

Actress Lori Loughlin will serve two months in prison and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, will serve five months after the couple pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the college admissions scandal. A federal judge on Friday accepted plea deals from the couple in a video sentencing hearing.

Loughlin, 56, will also pay a $150,000 fine, serve 100 hours of community service and be under supervised release for two years. Giannulli, 57, is required to pay a fine of $250,000, serve 250 hours of community service and serve two years of supervised release.

“I deeply regret the harm that my actions have caused my daughters my wife and others. I’m ready to accept the consequences and move forward with the lessons I’ve learned from this experience,” Giannulli said at the hearing.

The couple was accused of paying $500,000 to secure their two daughters’ admission to the University of Southern California by masquerading them as potential athletic recruits. A fake resume for their daughter Olivia Jade, a YouTube star, shows the couple pretended Jade was an accomplished rower.

Attorneys for Loughlin and Giannulli originally said the couple did nothing wrong and the half-million dollars they paid were “legitimate donations.” A motion to dismiss the charges was denied in May. The couple’s attorneys argued that federal agents had coached William “Rick” Singer, the alleged ringleader of the scheme, to “bend the truth,” but U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton ruled the prosecutors’ actions did not constitute misconduct.

Prior to rendering the sentence, Judge Gorton ripped into Giannulli for committing a “crime motivated by hubris” that is “defined by wanton arrogance and excessive pride.” Gorton said most of the people he sees did not grow up with role models, are abused, or live in squalid conditions and face tough choices.

“That’s not the case with you. You, yourself, describe a stable family. You are an informed businessman. You certainly did know better but you sponsored a breathtaking fraud on our system of education,” the judge said. “You were not stealing bread for your family.”

Eugene Ansley and Audrey McNamara contributed to this report.