Why Lori Loughlin Doesn’t Think She’ll Be Found Guilty

Ah, the college cheating scandal, a stream of scam content that just keeps on giving. Yesterday, we learned that embattled influencer Olivia Jade “fully knew” that her parents, Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, had paid bribes to college officials and forged information on her application to get her into USC. Both Loughlin and Giannulli are facing up to 40 years in prison on charges of conspiracy and money laundering related to Operation Varsity Blues, the college cheating scandal that gripped the nation.

Loughlin and Giannulli rejected an initial plea deal because it included jail time, and they pleaded not guilty in April. But now, People reports that Loughlin thinks she won’t be found guilty.

Loughlin, best known for her part as Aunt Becky on Full House and its Netflix reboot, Fuller House, has been dropped as a Hallmark Channel actress, and is not currently working. But according to a source, she “is a fighter” who “still believes she did the right thing by rejecting a guilty plea.”

The same source added that legal troubles and the subsequent public frenzy are “not great” for the couple’s marriage, but that they’re “trying to get through the legal hurdle as a team.”

“Lori in particular has become extremely well-versed in the case,” another insider said. “She’s an active participant in her own defense, feels like she’s got a valid defense, and that when all the evidence comes out, she won’t be found guilty.”

In April, People reported that Loughlin and Giannulli hadn’t realized they had done anything illegal until they were arrested. “You read the complaint, and they look like criminal masterminds,” a source said. “But they really didn’t know the legalities of what was going on. They’re not lawyers and they’re not experts. They were parents who simply wanted to make sure that their daughters got into a good school.”

So, in essence, Loughlin’s new legally informed defense is just that she hadn’t been so legally informed before.