Lori Loughlin Got the Shaft
By: Mike Knox
Tags: Hallmark Channel, Full House, Prison, Lori Loughlin, Rad

Lori Loughlin and her husband plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud due to the college admissions bribery scandal. To be more specific, charged with honest services mail fraud. (whatever the hell that means) She was sentenced to two months in prison, fined $150,000, and 100 hours of community service.

Lori Loughlin grew up in New York and began her career at the age of 11. She seemed to be everywhere in the 80s and 90s. She was in the greatest BMX movie ever, Rad.

She played Rebecca Donaldson on Full House. She was one of the most popular TV characters and was brought back in 2016 on Fuller House. Sadly, the network fired her from the show after the scandal emerged.

She was one of 50 people charged by the US attorney’s office and the FBI for fraud and bribery related to the scandal. Parents were paying butt loads of money to get their kids into college. No one was surprised because it’s been going on for years.

When I was in high school, my family spent the summer driving across the country, looking at colleges. My father wanted my sister to go to UCLA so he could save on in-state tuition. My sister didn’t get into UCLA, and my father was furious. After all, he had graduated from UCLA and had been an alumni season ticket holder for 20 years. He was insulted when an admissions advisor suggested he make a large “donation” to get my sister into UCLA. Instead, he shelled out $80,000 so my sister could get a degree in philosophy from Colorado College.

A lot of parents were desperate to get their kids into the right college and money was not a problem. They contacted Rick Singer. The 58-year-old “counselor” had found the perfect profession helping young people get into college. Mr. Singer had several schemes that helped wealthy parents bribe their way into expensive universities. He paid $2.7 million to Georgetown University’s tennis coach in an effort to get students in through affirmative action programs.

Mr. Singer helped kids take tests, like the SAT, claiming that students had learning disabilities and needed more time. He bribed testing proctors so that students didn’t have to show photo identification. Mr. Singer would arrange for students to take a test, and then the proctor would bubble in the correct answers. Mr. Singer created fake sports profiles by taking pictures of students and placing them on other students’ profiles. A family could make a large donation, like $500,000, to the school’s athletics program or Mr. Singer’s personal charity.

Lori Loughlin and her husband paid Mr. Singer to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California. They went so far as to have one daughter pose on a rowing machine. The photos went on an athletic scholarship for the Rowing team and got her into USC. They were too embarrassed to attend city college.

In the past few years, California has said they are at the forefront of prison reform. The state passed laws like Proposition 57 and 47. The Propositions allowed parole consideration for nonviolent felons and authorized sentence credits for education and good behavior.

The laws converted nonviolent offenses, such as drug and property offenses, from felonies to misdemeanors. Also included were crimes for writing bad checks, drug possession, and shoplifting. The money saved was supposed to go to victims, schools, mental health, drug treatment, and keeping people out of prison.

Lori Loughlin loved her daughters and was fighting a broken system. It seems unfair that the universities got a pass while others went to prison.

What’s the point of sending Lori Loughlin to prison for two months? What will Lori learn by being in a cement box? Prison isn’t about rehabilitation. Prison is about punishment. Lori will not be a reformed person when she is released because the punishment didn’t fit the crime.

How can California be a prison reform leader when they put Lori Loughlin in prison for a non-violent crime? In my opinion, Lori Loughlin got the shaft.