Federal prosecutors have released the rowing photos they claim Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli supplied to get their daughters Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose into the University of Southern California.
In new court documents filed on Wednesday as part of the FBI’s case and obtained by PEOPLE, Olivia, 20, and Isabella, 21, are shown — with their faces blurred — posing on ERG machines in activewear.
According to prosecutors in the court documents, Giannulli, 56, emailed college admissions scam ring leader, Rick Singer, his older daughter’s rowing photo on Sept. 7, 2016. Prosecutors state that Giannulli sent the image after Singer told the fashion mogul, “It would probably help to get a picture with her on an ERG in workout clothes like a real athlete too.”
In response, according to prosecutors Giannulli said: “Fantastic. Will get all.”
After Isabella was accepted, Giannulli sent an email to his financial advisor, according to prosecutors, writing, “Good news my daughter is in SC bad is I had to work the system.”
The following year on July 28, 2017, Olivia’s rowing photos were sent to Singer and prosecutors state in the court documents that Loughlin, 55, was cc’d on the email.
Olivia and Isabella never participated in the sport.
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In addition to the photos, Loughlin and Giannulli allegedly paid $500,000.
The release of the photos is in response to Loughlin’s attorneys filing a motion to dismiss her criminal case based on the actress’ claim that the FBI told Singer to lie about Loughlin and Giannulli’s knowledge of bribes being paid.
Loughlin and Giannulli were charged in October with one count each of conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery in addition to charges of money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud. They have both pled not guilty.
In their memo, filed on March 25, the defendants allege that “the Government belatedly disclosed Singer’s contemporaneous written notes revealing that those recordings were a sham carefully engineered by government agents in an effort to ‘entrap’ Defendants and ‘nail’ them ‘at all costs.’”
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“The Government’s extraordinary misconduct warrants extraordinary relief. The facts known so far justify dismissal of the indictment,” the memo, previously obtained by PEOPLE said. “At a minimum, the Court should order suppression of the tainted recordings.”
“Suppression is essential because the recordings are highly inflammatory, prejudicial, and deliberately misleading—especially in light of Singer’s other statements to Defendants and the Government that the payments were not bribes,” the memo continued.
“The Court should also order an evidentiary hearing to uncover the full truth about the recordings and the Government’s efforts to fabricate and conceal evidence. These measures are essential to preserve the integrity of this proceeding and to deter future prosecutorial misconduct.”
In February, Loughlin and Giannulli’s lawyer Sean M. Berkowitz filed a motion to have the decision on their trial date postponed, alleging that prosecutors have released previously withheld “exonerating” information about the couple.
Berkowitz stated in that motion, obtained by PEOPLE at the time, that “Singer’s notes indicate that FBI agents yelled at him and instructed him to lie by saying that he told his clients who participated in the alleged ‘side door’ scheme that their payments were bribes, rather than legitimate donations that went to the schools.”
A source told PEOPLE in December that she believed “Lori was hoodwinked by Rick Singer,” the man at the center of the scandal and the founder and CEO of the company The Key: a Private Life Coaching and Counseling Company.
“There’s no other way to put it. She was convinced that she was making a donation, just like parents have been doing for years,” the source said, adding, “She did not have any intent to do something illegal, and in fact she thought she was doing the right thing.”
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