NEWSCelebrity Justice: Lori Loughlin's Jail Sentence Has A Major Problem That People Are Pointing Out
Lori Loughlin was sentenced to two months in jail following her involvement in the "Operation Varsity Blues" scandal, while her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was also sentenced to five months in prison on August 21.
In March 2019, the couple was arrested for allegedly paying William Rick Singer — who was behind the whole scam — $500,000 for their daughters, Isabella Giannulli and Olivia Jade Giannulli, to attend the University of Southern California as members of the crew team — even though the girls had never been involved with the sport.
Per their plea agreement, the Fuller House star also agreed to pay a $150,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service. Her husband agreed to pay a $250,000 fine and serve 250 hours of community service.
“The crime Giannulli and Loughlin committed was serious,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin O’Connell wrote in a memo on August 17. “Over the course of two years, they engaged twice in Singer’s fraudulent scheme. They involved both their daughters in the fraud, directing them to pose in staged photographs for use in fake athletic profiles and instructing one daughter how to conceal the scheme from her high school counselor.”
Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman — who also took part in the scandal — was sentenced to two weeks in jail for paying $15,000 to have someone boost her daughter’s SAT scores, without her daughter’s knowledge. The 57-year-old only ended up serving 11 days in prison at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, which is speculated to be where Loughlin will end up.
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Ultimately, Huffman owned up to her mistakes. “I broke the law. I have admitted that, and I have pleaded guilty to this crime,” she said in a statement in September 2019. “I would like to apologize again to my daughter, my husband, my family and the educational community for my actions. And I especially want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices supporting their children.”
Now, people are pointing out on social media the unfairness of the judicial system when it comes to sentencing people of color over rich, white women.
In 2012, Tanya McDowell, a Black woman, was sentenced to five years in prison on several charges, including felony larceny for falsifying her address so she could send her son to what was considered a better school district.
Another user pointed out that a Black mother of three in Texas was sentenced to five years in prison for voting even though she was ineligible.
A third person claimed that Loughlin and Huffman were shown leniency for being rich and white and pleaded that the same courtesy be extended to those who are less “privileged.”
Although there are differences in all these cases, people are angry at a system that they deem to be unfair to minorities and to people who are not as well off.
