Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli continue to show that they’re enjoying privileges that are elusive to most other ex-federal prisoners by seeking permission for a second luxury trip to an international destination.
The couple, who are each on two years’ supervised release after serving prison time for their crimes in the college admissions scandal, have asked a federal judge for permission to travel to San Jose Del Cabo from Nov. 5 to 12.
This would be their second vacation to San Jose Del Cabo, a resort town on the Baja peninsula, since leaving federal prison. If nothing else, the planned vacation adds to the sense that TV’s Aunt Becky and her fashion designer husband are having a relatively easy time when it comes to returning to their opulent lives after their felony convictions.
Loughlin, 57, and Giannulli, 58, say they want to go to Mexico to attend a wedding, while Giannulli said he’ll also “be hosting meetings with a large business account holder,” according to letters submitted to the U.S. District Court in Boston, where they were sentenced.
Loughin and Giannulli already have the endorsement of a U.S. probation officer to travel. As is typical for all recently released federal prisoners, the couple need permission from a probation officer or a judge anytime they want to travel outside their home base in Southern California, whether for work or vacation.
In her letter to the court, supervising probation officer Chrissy Murphy said her office was in support of the requested travel. Murphy said that Loughlin and Giannulli have thus far complied with the terms of their supervised release.
Loughlin completed her community service requirements and paid a $150,000 fine after serving two months in the Dublin Federal Correctional Institute in late 2020. Giannulli, who served five months in the federal prison in Lompoc, paid his $250,000 fine and is “making progress” in fulfilling his community service requirements, Murphy said.
For Loughlin, the Cabo vacation would be her third trip outside the United States. The former “Full House” star received expedited permission to travel to an unspecified location in Canada in late September or early October to work on an unnamed “filming production project.”
Last week, it was confirmed that Loughlin would be returning to television, reprising her role as Abigail Stanton, which she made famous in the Hallmark Channel series “When Calls the Heart.”
However, Hallmark made it clear that Loughlin wouldn’t be returning to their show, TVShowsAce.com reported. Instead, she’ll play Abigail in the “When Calls the Heart” spinoff series, “When Calls Hope.”
“Hallmark Channel has not cast Lori Loughlin in any current projects, nor do we have any plans to cast her in the future,” Hallmark tweeted in response to speculation that she’d be hired back on their network. “She was cast by GAC Family, a wholly separate cable network not affiliated with Hallmark Channel or Crown Media Family Networks.”
Loughlin also starred in some of Hallmark’s beloved Christmas movies and its “Garage Sale Mystery” series. But the network publicly cut ties with her, after she and Giannulli were arrested in the college admissions scandal in March 2019.
Loughlin and Giannulli were accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to get their daughters, Isabella and Olivia Jade, fraudulently admitted to the University of Southern California on the false pretense of being talented crew athletes. The couple spent more than a year fighting the charges and proclaiming their innocence, until they finally relented to pressure from federal prosecutors and took a plea deal.
And just as Loughlin is slowly making her return to TV, their daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, is trying to make a comeback from her family’s disgrace by competing on the current season of “Dancing With the Stars.”
Advocates for federal prisoners have spoken out on the relatively easy time that Loughlin and Giannulli seem to be having in their post-prison life, with their ability to travel, resume their careers and purchase a new $13 million home in Palm Desert.
Most formerly incarcerated people don’t have the money to travel anywhere, usually because their incarceration has left them impoverished and struggling to find work with a felony conviction on their records.
Ex-prisoners also typically find strong resistance from their probation officers, if they’re in the first year of supervised release and seek permission to travel to another part of the state, much less outside the country, advocates have told this news organization.
But wealthy defendants, such as Loughlin and Giannulli, usually have an advantage over regular prisoners in navigating the pre- and post-release system. They can hire attorneys and special consultants to help them advocate for their needs and special travel requests.
Holli Coulman, of Pink Lady Prison Consultants, said she wasn’t allowed to leave areas of Southern California for two years after her release from prison after serving 15 months for misuse of a company credit card.
“I wasn’t allowed to leave my district, not past San Clemente and no further east than Yuma, Arizona,” Coulman said. “I couldn’t get permission to go see my mother in Colorado when she had emergency surgery.”
Coulman’s colleague, Larry Levine of Wall Street Prison Consultants, also said it was “highly irregular” for Loughlin or Giannulli to get permission to travel to another state, much less internationally, if they just left prison a few months earlier.
“Usually, they make you wait about 6 months to a year to let you travel,” said Levine.
