Lori Loughlin is reportedly getting scared now that she and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, have been hit with another wave of additional charges related to their part in the college admissions scandal.
After the Justice Department announced Tuesday that the couple, along with nine other parents, were indicted on federal charges related to bribery, a source close to the family says they’re running out of hope.
“They feel like this is David versus Goliath,” a source close to Loughlin, 55, told People. “How do you go up against the federal government, when the government has decided to make an example out of you? How can you possibly move forward from this?”
“This stress is about to break them,” the source added.
A grand jury in Boston indicted the parents on charges of trying to bribe officials at an organization that receives at least $10,000 in federal funding. In this case, they’re accused of paying to get their children admitted to the University of Southern California. All 11 defendants have previously pleaded not guilty to other charges in the scheme.
The charge of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery carries a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The couple were previously hit with additional charges of money laundering and conspiracy that could land them behind bars for 40 years if convicted on all of them. Prosecutors are pressuring those who have pleaded not guilty in the college admissions scandal to acknowledge their guilt.
“She is angry, she is sad, but most of all, she is terrified,” People’s source noted.
“It just gets worse and worse for her. And you have to remember: Nothing new has happened. They could have charged her with all of this last spring. But they waited,” the source explains. “She feels like she is a scapegoat.”
Loughlin and her husband, 56, have been accused of paying $500,000 to alleged scam mastermind, William “Rick” Singer, to get their daughters Olivia Jade and Isabella recruited onto the University of Southern California’s crew team despite neither girl ever being a rower.
