Prosecutors Deny Lori Loughlin’s Claims Of Misconduct, Motion To Dismiss Charges Denied

The government has responded to a motion made by Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli’s legal team last month to dismiss the charges against them in regard to the college admissions scandal. Prosecutors have denied misconduct allegations made by the famous couple’s attorneys, according to Entertainment Tonight.

Loughlin and Giannulli’s legal team alleged that the government has concealed a significant amount of evidence that, if revealed to the court, would help to prove their innocence. They claimed the evidence would show that the $500,000 the couple paid to the University of Southern California was not a bribe but a legitimate donation. The information in question is said to consist of documents, including emails and phone calls, with Rick Singer, the admitted mastermind of the scheme who is currently working with law enforcement.

The government wrote a lengthy response to the allegations, noting that this case is about a lot more than simply bribery. The couple has also been accused of falsely presenting their daughters, Olivia Jade and Bella Giannulli, as crew recruits to get them into college.

“The defendants’ core allegations of misconduct are premised on a straw man: that this case is only about bribery. It is not. The defendants are charged with conspiring to engage in a single, sweeping scheme to gain admission for their children to college by, among other things, lying about their academic and athletic qualifications so that complicit coaches, induced by bribes styled as ‘donations’ to their programs, could purport to recruit them as elite athletes.”

The statement went on to say that even if Singer did not actually use the word “bribe” within his communication with Loughlin or Giannulli, that doesn’t mean that the $500,000 was not a bribe, or that they did not believe it to be so.

In addition to denying misconduct allegations, the government added that there is no grounds for dismissal of the charges. Thus, it appears that Loughlin and Giannulli will be headed to trial as originally planned in October 2020. They could be sentenced to decades in prison if they are convicted for the charges against them.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, in addition to trying to get the charges thrown out, the couple’s legal team has also been trying to get the location of the trial changed. It is planned to be held in Massachusetts but neither of the defendants has any tie to the state as the alleged crimes occurred in California.