Prosecutors Hit Back Hard At Lori Loughlin's Motion To Dismiss

We know, we know, the college admissions case feels like a generation ago now. Like it should be a lyric in We Didn’t Start The Fire or something.

But believe it or not, the last big update we got was just two weeks ago! That was when Lori Loughlin‘s legal team filed a motion to dismiss the case entirely, citing shocking new evidence they said the prosecution had tried to withhold.

Way back in March of last year the Full House star and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, were accused of taking part in a massive scheme in which a man named Rick Singer served as a middleman for parents willing to shell out money to shady university staff to get their kids into college.

Singer was caught first and flipped, cooperating with the government to gather evidence incriminating his alleged co-conspirators — including reaching out on the phone to get them to admit their crimes.

It’s this last aspect of the government’s case Lori’s lawyers have taken issue with. They say the feds have been picking and choosing which phone calls they highlight — and which they sweep under the rug, like one in which Lori “made clear she did not know the payments were bribes or have any idea that Singer had engaged in wrongdoing.” They say in this call — which wasn’t mentioned in the indictment — Lori was clearly in the dark as she even double-checked with Singer that the whole business was “on the up and-up.”

Well, now prosecutors have responded to that motion to dismiss with their own reiteration of the scope of the case, calling the defense’s tactic a “straw man” argument:

“The defendants’ core allegations of misconduct are premised on a straw man: that this case is only about bribery. It is not. The defendants are charged with conspiring to engage in a single, sweeping scheme to gain admission for their children to college by, among other things, lying about their academic and athletic qualifications so that complicit coaches, induced by bribes styled as ‘donations’ to their programs, could purport to recruit them as elite athletes.”

Lori and Mossimo specifically are accused of paying out $500,000 to USC officials through Singer to get their daughters, Olivia Jade and Bella Giannulli, a place on the rowing team and thus in the college — even though neither had ever been involved in the sport. The parents face charges of mail fraud, federal program bribery, and money laundering. If found guilty they could be sentenced to over FOUR DECADES in prison.

Prosecutors also pointed out it’s not necessary for suspects to specifically name the crimes they’re committing — just to confirm their involvement:

“Just because neither Singer nor the defendants actually used the word ‘bribe’ to describe the purported donations doesn’t mean that they were legitimate.”

In addition to the phone calls, the government has a lot of paper evidence. Further complicating the case is the fact several parents, including fellow actress Felicity Huffman, have already pleaded guilty.

Assuming this motion to dismiss doesn’t work, Lori and Moss will have to convince a jury they participated in the same criminal scheme as many others without ever committing a crime themselves — so they have their work cut out for them.

Do YOU think Aunt Becky will get off??

[Image via Nicky Nelson/WENN/ABC.]