Remember the college admissions scandal, notably featuring television stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman? If you’ll recall, there were actually a lot of other, less famous people involved, and it turns out there are a lot of ways besides being a B-list celebrity to obtain enough cash to bribe your kid’s way into college.
Just ask Hot Pockets heiress Michelle Janavs, who is currently facing up to 21 months in prison for agreeing to pay $300,000 to cheat her daughters’ way into college in the nationwide scam. Janavs will be sentenced Tuesday in Boston federal court, where AP News reports prosecutors are asking for 21 months in prison, calling her one of the “most culpable parents” involved in the scam.
According to prosecutors, Janavs owes that superlative to the fact that she participated in the scheme multiple times, paying $100,000 to have a proctor correct her daughters’ ACT exam answers and agreeing to pay $200,000 to have one daughter posed as a fake beach volleyball recruit at the University of Southern California. The prosecution also noted Janavs’ delayed admission of guilt in their assessment of her culpability.
This is all looking like bad news for Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli, who are accused of paying $500,000 to get their daughters into the University of Southern California using a similar fake-recruiting scheme and have refused to plead guilty.
Janavs’ lawyers have painted the accused as a devoted mother and philanthropist who fell victim to admissions scam ringleader Rick Singer’s “manipulative sales tactics.” The defense has argued that Janavs has already suffered enough and should not receive any prison time.
“The fallout from Michelle’s actions stand as a beacon to others that illegal shortcuts are a recipe for disaster, regardless of the punishment the court imposes on Michelle,” her lawyers wrote.
That’s all well and good, but I assume the prosecution will agree they still need to hand down a punishment to fit Janavs’ true crime: sullying the good Hot Pockets name.
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