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In their legal filing Friday, prosecutors had sharp words for a possible defense strategy that’s reared its head in prior court filings.
“The defendants’ contention that, if [admitted scam ringleader William ‘Rick’] 'Singer did in fact tell some clients that their admissions-related donations were legitimate,’ that would 'corroborate[] Defendants’ lack of fraudulent intent, is farcical,” said the filing from US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling’s office.
Loughlin’s lawyers hadn’t responded to the filing as of Monday morning.
Prosecutors have charged more than 50 people in US District Court in Boston in connection with the scheme, in which celebrities, titans of industry and other big-shots allegedly cut large checks to Singer to get their children falsely classified as athletic recruits at fancy schools -- paving their way to admission to elite campuses on both coasts -- or to facilitate cheating on the kids’ SAT and ACT exams when the scores needed a little boost.
Prosecutors say parents sent bribe payments to Singer’s sham charity, the Key Worldwide Foundation, under the guise of helping disadvantaged kids, and Singer kicked some cash over to corrupt school officials and coaches in on the plot. Singer ultimately cooperated with investigators and wired up on several parents, at times capturing their discussions about the scheme in strikingly blunt terms. Singer’s admitted to his starring role in the ruse and awaits sentencing.
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It was Loughlin and Giannulli’s request for notes of FBI interviews with Singer, known as 302s, that in part prompted the prosecutor’s filing Friday. Prosecutors say the besieged couple isn’t entitled to the notes at this stage of the case. Lawyers for the couple maintain that if Singer said in FBI interviews that he told the couple their payments were legitimate USC contributions, then the duo lacked the requisite intent to defraud the school that’s required for a conviction.
In addition, the defense argues that if USC knew about Singer’s longstanding scheme, then the school can’t claim it was duped, another key element of the case.
Prosecutors responded on Friday.
“As previously noted, the government has disclosed all communications in its possession, custody and control between or among Singer, Loughlin and Giannulli, as well as summaries of what Singer told government investigators about what he recalled about his communications with Loughlin and Giannulli concerning their payments,” prosecutors wrote. “Counsel for Giannulli and Loughlin complain that ‘the Government has offered no justification for providing a prosecutor’s sanitized characterization of the 302 Reports rather than the actual Reports and accompanying notes from the interviewers themselves.’ ”
The defense’s “sanitized” comment appears to have stuck in the government’s craw.
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"[T]he defendants’ characterization of the government’s disclosure as ‘sanitized’ is baseless and untrue, and 'the Government is under no legal obligation to explain why it chose to summarize the statements at issue rather than produce the notes and FBI 302s,” prosecutors wrote Friday.
Prosecutors said Loughlin’s camp is also misguided in their quest for 302s detailing Singer’s statements about what he told other parents who haven’t been charged.
“[T]he defendants correctly note that the government has not disclosed the substance of Singer’s statements to investigators about what he told other, uncharged parents,” prosecutors wrote. “That is because those statements are not exculpatory as to these defendants.”
And, prosecutors added, investigators have uncovered no evidence that Singer’s scheme was widely known among USC officials.
“No witness has suggested that USC condoned this scheme, tacitly or otherwise,” prosecutors wrote. “Nor is the government in possession of any evidence suggesting that anyone at USC, save [former USC employee Donna] Heinel, was aware the Giannulli children were admitted in exchange for money, or that they were not the athletes they purported to be.”
Heinel’s been charged for her alleged role in the scheme and has pleaded not guilty.
Loughlin, meanwhile, isn’t the only Tinseltown A-lister to get charged.
“Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman, who also enthralled critics and moviegoers alike with her gutsy performance in “Transamerica," did less than two weeks in the can for paying a $15,000 bribe to pad her daughter’s SAT score. Huffman, whose spouse is “Shameless” star William H. Macy, an incomparable character actor who won plaudits for his soul-bearing performance as a tormented former game show contestant in the film “Magnolia,” also had to cough up a $30,000 fine and was ordered to put in 250 hours of community service.
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Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.
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February 10, 2020 at 10:51PM
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Prosecutors fire back at Lori Loughlin’s defense in college admissions case; call it ‘farcical’ - The Boston Globe
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