Lori Loughlin’s defense in college admissions scandal case leaks. Will she avoid prison after all?
Yahoo Entertainment reported on January 10, 2020, on the leaking of new details of Lori Loughlin and her husband’s defense in the College Admissions Scandal.
Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Silva L. Megerditchian of SLM Law, who is not a part of the defense team or working with Loughlin or Giannulli, was interviewed in regard to the story.
Here is an excerpt of the interview:
“The brilliance of the defense,” led by high-profile attorney Sean M. Berkowitz, a former director of the Department of Justice’s Enron Task Force, now of Latham & Watkins, LLP, “is that if you open the door, then it’s not just going to be Singer, it’s going to be the USC admissions policy,” Megerditchian says, referring to the fact that the wealthy have long been making legal financial donations to schools when their offspring is granted admission. “What the defense team is doing here is drawing the parallels. They’re saying, ‘If you’re going to look into my client for writing a check to USC, then you need to look at the big fish here.’ That potential can of worms has huge effects — not just on USC but every private school in the country.”
“Because of that gray area, Loughlin and Giannulli’s attorneys could say of their clients, ‘We didn’t know that making donations to USC and Singer’s charity Key Worldwide Foundation was illegal. We wanted to make charitable donations to USC. We thought [it was legal] because everybody donates to the university — there are halls and whatnot. We had no idea it was wrong,’ Megerditchian speculates.
After all, “A defense is simply a reasonable explanation for what could have occurred,” Megerditchian reminds, “There is no doubt that a huge donation was made, but if this can be seen as a just a simple donation to a university to help them along, then that is a huge defense to both of them.”
And if the fake photos of the Giannulli sisters were never officially submitted to USC, that also bolsters the defense.
“All of a sudden something we thought we knew months ago — the rowing photo — may not be true,” Megerditchian says of getting the first real glimpse of the defense.