Mossimo Giannulli would like to leave prison now please, deeming his college admissions scam punishment 'extreme'

Convicted college admissions scammer Mossimo Giannulli, husband of Full House star Lori Loughlin, is complaining that the time he’s spent in prison so far has been “far more extreme than what the court recommended.” Giannulli, who was sentenced to five months behind bars (plus fines and community service) because of his role in attempting to buy spots for his two daughters at a prestigious California university, has been kept in solitary confinement for the first two months of his five-month sentence. Now he’s petitioning the courts to allow him to complete the remainder of his time under house arrest.

Giannulli’s spot in a solitary cell doesn’t stem from bad behaviour (or any of the other police procedural TV show reasons that an inmate may end up in solitary) but is due to COVID-19 restrictions and the virus’s propensity to spread rapidly in prison settings.

“Mr. Giannulli was immediately placed in solitary confinement in a small cell at the adjacent medium security penitentiary, 24 hours per day with only three short 20 minute breaks per week, where he remained for 56 days before finally being transferred to the camp yesterday,” reads an emergency filing from Giannulli’s legal team, filed January 13 (via PageSix). “After each negative [COVID] test, without further explanation, Mr. Giannulli was returned to his cell, purportedly for another two-week period of solitary quarantine.”

The federal facility in Lompoc, California where the fashion designer is being held is reported to be dealing with 60 cases of COVID-19 spread among both staff and inmates. Five people have died there from the virus. Still, Giannulli is using his (arguably safer) position in solitary to argue that he should be released from the facility and allowed to go home. “He has a stable home environment — to which he will directly and immediately travel upon release — with resources that will allow him to quarantine safely and remain at home for the remainder of his sentence,” said his lawyers.

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That argument may read as remarkably obtuse, especially if you consider daughter Olivia Jade’s recent claims that her family has, thanks to the scandal, newly learned to recognize their privilege. The influencer sat down with Jada Pinkett and co. for a Red Table Talk about the issues, admitting that she was “the poster child for white privilege” and saying, “There is no justifying or excusing what happened because what happened was wrong. I think every single person in my family can be like, ‘That was messed up. That was a mistake.’”

And yet, Mossimo Giannulli is again putting his privilege to work for him, paying for an expensive team of lawyers to argue his way out of over half of his sentence so that he can return to his “stable home environment” during a lockdown, in which ALL of us (even those of us who didn’t try to scam college admissions boards) are confined to our homes. If that isn’t an example of privilege trying to trump justice, we don’t know what would be.

Giannulli and Loughlin were among the dozens of rich parents ensnared in the widespread college admissions scandal.

The California couple initially fought the charges, then admitted to paying $50,000 in bribes to get their two daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose, into the University of Southern California. The girls were passed off as rowing crew recruits — even though they weren’t athletes.

Loughlin was sentenced to two months behind bars and was released in late December.

Giannulli received a stiffer sentence after the judge found he played a bigger role than his wife in the college scheme.

He was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service.

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