Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband are among 16 parents facing a new indictment for their alleged involvement in the college admissions scandal, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said Tuesday.
Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, were charged last month with conspiracy to commit mail fraud for allegedly paying bribes totaling $500,000 to help their two daughters get into the University of Southern California. The new indictment adds a charge of money laundering against the couple and 14 other defendants accused in the scheme.
The second charge alleges that the parents funneled the bribes and other payments through a purported charity and for-profit corporation, and transferred money from outside of the United States into the country "for the purpose of promoting the fraud scheme," the U.S. attorney's office said.
Loughlin, best known for her role as Aunt Becky on "Full House," appeared in federal court last month and was released on a $1 million bond. Her representatives declined to comment on Tuesday's indictment.
The actress was fired from the Hallmark Channel after her arrest, and her daughter, Olivia Jade, a YouTube star, lost paid partnerships with Sephora and TRESemmé.
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Olivia Jade and Loughlin's other daughter, Isabella, attend USC, which said last month that it would review the cases of students whose parents were accused in the scheme and take action "up to revoking admission or expulsion."
No students have been charged in the alleged scam, and authorities said in many cases, they were unaware of what their parents had done to get them into top schools.
On Monday, actress Felicity Huffman was among 14 defendants accused in the scandal who agreed to plead guilty, according to the Department of Justice. Huffman's husband, William H. Macy, was not charged in the FBI investigation.
Fifty people were originally charged in the scheme, in which some parents spent $200,000 to $6.5 million to ensure that their children received guaranteed admission at the schools of their choice.
Thirty-three are parents and nine were college coaches. The others were a mix of standardized test administrators, a test proctor and associates of the scheme's ringleader, William Rick Singer, authorities said.
Singer has pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and obstruction of justice.
Singer, who operated a for-profit college counseling and preparation business — The Edge College & Career Network LLC — and a purported charity — the Key Worldwide Foundation — helped authorities expose the scam by wearing a wire and cooperating with investigators.
