Photo Credit: Reuters
Last week Felicity Huffman plead guilty early to one charge of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and may only have to serve just months in prison. She fessed up early so that things wouldn’t be so bad for her. Lori Loughlin doesn’t seem to have such luck. She’s held out and reportedly even thought that the prospect of prison time was just bluffing. Her holding out has added an additional indictment of money laundering. Money laundering alone is a maximum of 20 years and instead of 2 to 2 and a half years minimum in prison, prosecutors would recommend a minimum of 4 years and 9 months up to 5 years and 11 months.
Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli waved their right to appear in Boston federal court today and submitted court documents through their attorney. They plead not guilty to the two charges against them. The deal presented by U.S. Attorney out of Boston was to either enter into a plea deal or the case would go to a Grand Jury and face additional charges, which is exactly what happened. Some sources have said a plea bargain is still on the table if they choose to change their minds and others said it isn’t. If it is, that’s a good thing for her, but if it isn’t, her options are pretty slim at this point and not hardly positive.
It’s possible that she could have looked at Felicity Huffman’s case and felt things wouldn’t be so bad for them, but then again, Huffman only paid $15,000 in her bribery case. Loughlin paid close to a half million dollars, so by default, her punishment is going to be worse and the longer she takes to enter a plea bargain, that is if it’s even still there for her to take, the worse it’s going to get. On top of that, her smiling outside of court for pictures isn’t an image that would play over very well for any judge or jury.
Despite widespread public outrage, everyone isn’t exactly against Loughlin. Shoe design giant Steve Madden was out in New York City last Tuesday and asked by TMZ what he thought of the college cheating scandal. He responded saying he felt they shouldn’t get any time behind bars, stating they’re just misguided moms. This isn’t exactly shocking considering he did a few years behind bars himself for Securities fraud and stock manipulation. Criminal minds think alike. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have his good words to save her here. In the end, she would have been better off just giving her daughter the $500,000 in cash.