The plot is thickening with Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli’s involvement in the Operation Varsity Blues scandal, and in hindsight, it’s looking more and more like they really should have taken that plea deal. The latest bit of spilled tea comes from Too Fab, which reports that Giannulli had an encounter with his younger daughter’s then-high school guidance counselor when he questioned the teen’s alleged “rowing credentials.”
As the rest of the world is now aware, the couple stand accused of paying the scam ringleader Rick Singer $500,000 to secure their daughters admission into the University of Southern California by faking their crew team involvement. This apparently came as a surprise to the counselor at Marymount High School — an elite all-girls Catholic high-school in Los Angeles — since the school that Olivia Jade and her sister Isabella had attended did not in fact have a crew team.
Giannulli reportedly went down to the school and had some sort of confrontation with the staffer after they expressed concern that the girls applications may have contained misleading information, according to testimony Singer allegedly gave to the Justice Department. The counselor later confirmed Olivia Jade and Isabella’s participation with the university, but it set off alarm bells with the since-fired USC senior associate athletic director, Donna Heinel, who apparently left Singer a very telling voicemail over the incident:
“I just want to make sure that, you know, I don’t want the — the parents getting angry and creating any type of disturbance at the school,” she said in her voicemail. “I just want to make sure those students . . . if questioned at the school that they respond in a[n] appropriate way that they are, walk-on candidates for their respective sports. They’re looking forward to trying out for the team and making the team when they get here. OK? That’s what I just want to make sure of.”
“So I just don’t want anybody going into . . . [the Giannuli’s daughter’s high school], you know, yelling at counselors. That’ll shut everything — that’ll shut everything down,” she said according to court documents.
To make matters worse, Loughlin also mentioned the incident in an email to Singer over Olivia Jade’s USC formal application, referring to the counselor as “our little friend”:
“[Our younger daughter] has not submitted all her colleges [sic] apps and is confused on how to do so,” she wrote, according to the DOJ complaint. “I want to make sure she gets those in as I don’t want to call any attention to [her] with our little friend at [her high school]. Can you tell us how to proceed?”
Both Loughlin and Giannulli face up to 40 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. An initial status conference is set for June 3 with a trial likely to follow.
(Via Too Fab)