Celebrity College Scandal

16 parents have been indicted in the controversial college admissions scandal, with two of them being high profile actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. According to People, on Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Massachusetts said that all 16 of the parents have been charged by a federal grand jury in Boston on fraud and money laundering charges.

This follows about a month after leaked information about 50 people cheating on college admissions evaluations such as falsifying fake SAT scores and lying about their athletic abilities, along with others.

It was reported that Full House actress Loughlin paid $500,000 to have her daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose, instituted in crew team recruits despite the fact that neither had ever had any experience rowing. Loughlin was arrested in Los Angeles on March 13 but was set free on a $1 million bond.

People also reported that the original criminal in the scandal who allegedly took the bribes from Loughlin, William “Rick” Singer of his company, Key Worldwide Foundation, admitted his role in the scandal and plead guilty to multiple charges.

According to the indictment reading, Loughlin and her husband, J. Mossimo Giannulli, “[conspired] to launder the bribes and other payments in furtherance of the fraud by funneling them through Singer’s purported charity and his for-profit corporation, as well as by transferring money into the United States, from outside the United States, for the purpose of promoting the fraud scheme.” An arraignment for the couple hasn’t been scheduled.

They face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for their participation in the scandal

CNN reports that Huffman, on the other hand, who plead guilty to $15,000 to a fake charity that Singer was also involved with, which gave her an opportunity to intervene in her daughter’s SATs and give her privileges that other kids didn’t have. Huffman later issued an apology and claimed that her daughter knew nothing of her mother’s involvement. She said that she had betrayed her daughter and that there were no excuses for her breaking the law. In a statement, she said “I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues and the educational community. I want to apologize to them and, especially, I want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly.”