Los Angeles - Prosecutors are withholding evidence that
would show Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, believed
the 500,000 dollars they paid to a college admissions consultant's
charity was a legitimate donation, not bribes that would ensure their
daughters were admitted to the University of Southern California as
rowers, the couple's attorneys wrote in a court filing.
The couple's legal team, led by former Enron prosecutor Sean
Berkowitz, is demanding the government turn over FBI reports, known
as 302s, that memorialized agents' interviews with the consultant at
the center of the scheme, William "Rick" Singer.
Those reports would show where Singer told his clients their
six-figure payments would end up, Berkowitz wrote. In the case of
Loughlin and Giannulli, who have been charged with conspiracy to
commit fraud, money laundering and bribery, the couple thought their
money "would go to USC itself - for legitimate, university-approved
purposes - or to other legitimate charitable causes," their lawyers
wrote.
Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney's office in Boston have so far
refused to disclose the FBI reports, Berkowitz wrote. They have
provided only a summary of Singer's discussion of his dealings with
Loughlin and Giannulli, he said.
The summary is appended to Berkowitz's filing. Singer explained to
the couple that to have their daughters admitted to USC as recruited
coxswains, they "would need to write a 50,000-dollar check to Donna
Heinel at USC and pay an additional 200,000 dollars through the KWF,"
the summary says. KWF is short for Singer's charity, the Key
Worldwide Foundation.
Prosecutors say Heinel, then a high-ranking administrator at USC,
presented the couple's daughters to an admissions committee as elite
rowers, which they were not. Heinel has been fired by USC. She has
pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering, bribery and
fraud.
But to hear their lawyers tell it, Loughlin and Giannulli believed
they were sending money to a charity in good standing with the
Internal Revenue Service, and that the money would "support programs
geared toward helping underprivileged children" and "legitimate
university activities" at USC.
"Giannulli and Loughlin will help establish their innocence by
showing that they understood both sets of payments to be legitimate
donations," Berkowitz wrote, "and did not understand or intend that
either set of payments would be used to directly or indirectly bribe
Heinel."
In pleading guilty to four felonies in March, Singer admitted that
despite its avowed mission of supporting "underprivileged children,"
his foundation had little function beyond allowing his clients to
make tax-deductible payments that Singer then parceled out in bribes
to college coaches and test administrators.
Loughlin and Giannulli's attorneys also want information concerning
USC's knowledge of Singer's operation, which shuttled more students
into the Los Angeles school than any of the dozen or so elite
colleges to which Singer peddled illegal access.
"If, for example, USC knew of Singer's operation and accepted
donations to the university from Singer's clients as legitimate, then
not only was there no bribery at USC, but also no fraud conspiracy at
all," Berkowitz wrote.
He pointed to a recent indictment that suggests more USC employees
were involved in Singer's scheme than the three coaches and an
administrator who have been charged with racketeering, fraud and
bribery. "There is good reason to believe that numerous USC officials
were aware of Singer's operation," Berkowitz said.
Included in the government's summary of Singer's interviews are
glimpses of his dealings with Loughlin and Giannulli, perhaps the
most well-known names implicated in the scandal.
Singer told FBI agents that "Lori Loughlin was in charge and told the
couple's daughters that they needed to do better in high school."
Agents have also interviewed Philip Petrone and Jacqueline Landry,
co-director of college counseling and head of school, respectively,
at Marymount High, where Loughlin and Giannulli's daughters went to
school.
"When Philip Petrone began asking questions about why Olivia was
admitted to USC as a recruit to the crew team (given that she did not
participate in crew), Singer told Giannulli that Petrone could mess
things up and advised Giannulli to speak with Petrone," the summary
says.
Petrone told agents that Giannulli asked him if he "had told USC that
his daughters were bad candidates"; he said he had not. Giannulli
then told Petrone that his younger daughter, Olivia, was in fact a
coxswain and that he would tell USC as much, according to the
summary.
Landry told agents that after Giannulli informed her that Olivia
rowed crew at a private club, she assured him "Marymount would not
interfere with Olivia's application to USC," according to the
summary.