iStock/Pattanaphong Khuankaew(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts grand jury has returned additional charges against 18 people charged in the college admissions case — including Full House star Lori Loughlin and her husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli.
The charges were announced in separate statements by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The jury in the District of Massachusetts is alleging that 11 defendants including Loughlin and Giannulli, “conspired to commit federal program bribery by bribing employees of the University of Southern California (USC) to facilitate their children’s admission,” according to the DOJ statement.
One defendant, John Wilson, of Lynnfield, Massachusetts, has also been charged with two counts of substantive federal programs bribery in connection with efforts to use bribes to get his children into Harvard University and Stanford University.
The indictments also include more charges against William McGlashan Jr., Robert Zangrillo, Wilson, and Joey Chen, who stand accused of fraud and honest services wire fraud in connection with previous charges.
The seven university officials facing additional charges are Gordon Ernst, Donna Heinel, Jorge Salcedo, Mikaela Sanford, Jovan Vavic, Niki Williams and William Ferguson. They’re accused of “conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud, and honest services mail and wire fraud, in connection with the previously charged scheme to accept bribes and engage in other forms of fraud to facilitate cheating on standardized admissions tests and to secure the admission of students to elite universities by designating them as purported athletic recruits or members of other favored admissions categories,” according to the statement.
Ernst, Heinel, Salcedo, Sanford, Vavic and Williams also, “face substantive wire and honest services wire fraud charges in connection with the scheme,” the DOJ said.
One parent indicted in the scandal, actress Felicity Huffman, is currently serving her 14-day prison sentence after pleading guilty to the charges against her.
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