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Lori Loughlin ‘Rejected’ A ‘Legitimate Approach’ To Get Daughter Into USC, According To Prosecutors

(Photo credit JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images)

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
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Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli “rejected” a “legitimate approach” to get their daughter into the University of Southern California, according to prosecutors.

In court documents filed Tuesday, federal prosecutors claimed that Mossimo “rebuffed” a USC development official’s offer in 2016 to “flag” his oldest daughter, Isabella Giannulli’s, application, per Page Six in a piece published Thursday. (RELATED: Lori Loughlin’s Daughter Bragged About Going To School To Party)

Olivia Jade Giannulli, Lori Loughlin and Isabella Rose Giannulli attend The Women's Cancer Research Fund's An Unforgettable Evening Benefit Gala at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on February 28, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Olivia Jade Giannulli, Lori Loughlin and Isabella Rose Giannulli…(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

“I think we are squared away,” Mossimo emailed on Sept. 27, 2016 to the USC official, according to court papers. That email was then forwarded to the his 55-year-old actress wife, noting, “The nicest I’ve been at blowing somebody off.”(RELATED: Felicity Huffman Pleads Guilty In College Admissions Scandal)

Prosecutors then noted how the “Full House” star and her husband have previously claimed that “universities — as part of their legitimate admissions process — regularly solicit donations from the families of prospective students, and … such donations can have a material effect on admissions decisions.” (RELATED: Report: Felicity Huffman Deletes Post About Being A ‘Good Enough’ Mom Following College Admission Scam Arrest)

However, the couple “specifically rejected this ‘legitimate’ approach” at the time their oldest was applying to the school, according to prosecutors. (RELATED: Report: Felicity Huffman Deletes Post About Being A ‘Good Enough’ Mom Following College Admission Scam Arrest)

The court documents also stated that by the summer of 2015, Loughlin and her husband had begun to work with William “Rick” Singer to implement their “game plan” to get Isabella into USC by reportedly creating “a coxswain profile” for their oldest.  Singer emailed, “it would probably help to get a picture with her on an ERG in workout clothes like a real athlete too.”

Prosecutors noted that, Loughlin’s oldest “did not row crew, and was not a coxswain.” The “falsified athletic profile that including this picture” was then sent to Donna Heinel, the former senior associate athletic director for USC,” per court documents.

According to the report:

In October 2016, after Heinel secured the Giannullis’ daughter’s conditional admission as a recruited crew coxswain — without telling the subcommittee on athletic admissions that she had done so in exchange for a payment to a fund she had designated, or that the applicant was not, in fact, a coxswain — Singer instructed Giannulli to send Heinel a check in the amount of $50,000, payable to ‘USC Athletics,’” according to the documents.

An additional $200,00 was wired to Singer the same day through his phony charity, Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF).

Similar documentation and payment was then requested in July 2017 for Mossimo and Loughlin’s younger daughter, Olivia Jade’s admission to the university, per prosecutors.

Court documents show a phone call in October 2018 between Singer, who was now cooperating with the FBI, and Mossimo in which the “When Calls The Heart'” star’s husband “confirmed his understanding that his two $200,000 payments to KWF were ‘goin[g] to Donna Heinel at USC to get the girls into USC, through crew;’ that the rowing information on his daughters’ athletic profiles was fabricated; and that Singer would falsely tell the IRS that the $400,000 was to ‘help underserved kids.'”

Loughlin and Mossimo have pleaded not guilty to a variety of charges in the college admission scandal.