Lori Loughlin, Bay Area parents hit with new charges involving fake athletic profiles for USC

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If Lori Loughlin had been looking to strike a plea deal with federal prosecutors in the college admissions scandal, she waited too long: She, husband Mossimo Giannulli and nine other defendants — including three from the Bay Area — were hit Tuesday with additional charges.

A grand jury in the District of Massachusetts returned additional charges against 11 parents already charged in the case, U.S. prosectors announced Tuesday.

The charges relate to the parents’ efforts to get their children admitted to the University of Southern California. They involve allegations that the defendants conspired to bribe employees at USC to facilitate their children’s admission by having them falsely designated as athletic recruits — “with little or no regard for their athletic abilities,” prosecutors said in a news release.

In addition to Loughlin and Giannulli, the other parents facing new charges include investor Todd Blake and his wife, Diane, from the Marin County town of Ross; beverage distribution executive Marci Palatella of Hillsborough; and Mill Valley investor William McGlashan. Prosecutors also said McGlashan faces new charges of wire fraud.

The parents were charged with conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. The charge is defined as a bribe of anything valued of at least $5,000 at an organization that receives more than $10,000 in grants or subsidies from the federal government, which would include USC and other universities implicated in the scam.

Loughlin, Giannulli and the other parents already faced charges of conspiracy and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which each carry maximum prison sentences of 20 years. They were among 15 parents who had maintained their innocence and vowed to fight the charges, but prosecutors had warned them last week they would face an additional bribery charged if they didn’t plead guilty by Monday.

Four of those parents chose to plead guilty in the past week. including Manuel Henriquez, a venture capitalist, and his wife, Elizabeth Henriquez, of Atherton. Also pleading guilty were Douglas Hodge, the former chief executive of bond giant Pimco and Michelle Janavs, a Newport Coast philanthropist whose family invented the Hot Pocket.

The new charges announced Tuesday also allege that John Wilson of Lynnfield, Mass., paid bribes to secure his children’s admission to Harvard University and Stanford University.

The 11 defendants, originally arrested in March, were accused of paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to college admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer and his alleged co-conspirators to get their children admitted to top U.S. colleges. Singer in turn either paid SAT and ACT exam administrators to help boost the test scores of his clients’ children or he worked with alleged co-conspirators at USC and other schools to create fake athletic profiles for the children.

Loughlin and Giannulli allegedly paid Singer $500,000 to have their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli, falsely designated as crew team recruits at USC — even though neither daughter rowed competitively at their Los Angeles prep school.

Both were admitted to USC and attended school there until news of the scandal broke in March. Reports this week say that Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli are no longer enrolled at USC.

McGlashan is accused of paying $50,000 to get his son admitted to USC. Prosecutors alleged in court filings that McGlashan “agreed to make a purported donation of $50,000” to the Key Worldwide Foundation, an educational non-profit that Singer ran. Prosecutors alleged that Singer used the foundation to hide the large sums of money paid by parents in the bribery scheme.

Singer would use the money to pay a test proctor to “correct his son’s answers” on the ACT entrance exam. Prosecutors further alleged that McGlashan in the summer of 2018 agreed to pay Singer $250,000 to ease his son’s way into USC by having him falsely presented as a football kicker, even though the boy didn’t play the sport and his high school didn’t offer it. Singer said he would use Photoshop to put McGlashan’s son’s face on an image of a real athlete.

Todd and Diane Blake also are accused of paying a total of $250,000 to get their daughter admitted to USC as a volleyball player, while Palatella is accused of paying nearly $600,000 to have her son’s SAT score boosted and to have him presented as a star football player, who had been a member of several championship teams.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.