California Apparel News

Nearly one month after 33 parents were indicted for paying bribes to get their children into prestigious universities, 16 of them were indicted by a federal grand jury on a secondary charge of fraud and money laundering.

Those 16 parents include Los Angeles fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli and his wife, actress Lori Loughlin.

They were originally accused of paying $500,000 to get their two daughters—Isabella Rose and Olivia Jade—into the University of Southern California by being designated as recruits to the USC crew team even though they did not participate in crew, court documents said.

The money-laundering charge, filed on April 9, comes from contributions the parents made to a nonprofit run by William “Rick” Skinner, accused of masterminding the college bribery scandal that used $25 million to get students into, among other colleges, Stanford University, Yale University and USC.

Skinner’s nonprofit, called the Key Worldwide Foundation, headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif., allegedly used donated funds from the parents to pay off athletic directors to recruit some of the students for their teams and to pay test takers to help students improve their scores.

Many of the parents deducted their Key Worldwide Foundation contributions on their federal tax forms.

Actress Felicity Huffman was not named in the additional charge. She is one of 13 parents who agreed to plead guilty to charges of committing mail and wire fraud and honest service mail and wire fraud.

With this additional indictment, the 16 parents will be required to appear in federal court in Boston in coming days to enter a plea.