With their sentencing just over a month away, Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli asked a judge to reduce bonds of $1 million secured by their property as of Monday, July 13. The couple, who were implicated in the college admissions scandal of 2019, have already faced trial and are set to face sentencing in August.
Lori, 55, and Mossimo, 57, initially pled not guilty to being involved in the bribery scheme that also saw the likes of Felicity Huffman and William E. McGlashan Jr. involved. In May, however, the couple ended up accepting a plea deal and officially entered their guilty pleas during a virtual court appearance. They are set to appear in court on August 21, 2020. In the meantime, the actress and fashion designer are reportedly in the process of selling their home to Tinder co-founder, Justin Mateen, for $18 million. Only, there’s one problem: Their bonds are currently secured to a lien on their home.
As part of a request to judge Nathaniel M. Gorton of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Lori and Mossimo have “respectfully” appealed for the removal of the security lien on their home and an overall reduction to their bail amounts. The Full House star and her husband were each set to $1 million bail bonds shortly after their arrest in March 2019 for paying $500,000 to fixer William ‘Rick’ Singer to get their daughters, Isabella, 21, and Olivia Jade, 20, into college at the University of Southern California. Now, the couple is requesting a 90% reduction to those bonds.
According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Lori and Mossimo’s legal teams have appealed for “an order releasing their $1,000,000 bonds secured by their property, reducing their bail from $1,000,000 to $100,000, and removing the requirement that the $100,000 bonds be secured by money or property.”
The pair’s legal team suggests that “there is no indication that Defendants will flee rather than face sentencing” come August, and as such, the federal government via Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Rosen have already agreed with their “request to lift the security requirement and reduce the bail amounts to $100,000.” Now, it’s just up to Judge Gorton.
Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli’s bail bonds aren’t the only things still being left up to Judge Gorton’s consideration. While the settled on a plea deal in May, Judge Gorton is still able to amend those terms. So far, Lori has agreed to serve two months in prison, serve 100 hours of community service, and pay a $150,000 fine. Meanwhile, her husband Mossimo has accepted a plea deal to serve five months behind bars, serve 250 hours of community service, and pay $250,000. The couple also agreed to serve two years of supervised release.
The pair’s requests to reduce their bonds came only a day after multiple outlets claimed that they had sold their Bel Air mansion to Tinder co-founder, Justin Mateen. The 12,000-square-foot property was reportedly sold to Mateen for $18 million—a selling price at just $10 million undervalue for Lori and Mossimo’s original asking price of $28.7 million. Now, the issue of whether or not this sale will clear appears to be in the hands of Judge Gorton.