We had to endure this story for all this time for Lori Loughlin to essentially get a slap on the wrist? Meanwhile, get caught with drugs and you go up the river for years!
As for her husband, Mossimo, he got five months, but it's still de minimis, there was a threat of twenty years, but since these people are rich and famous they may not skate completely but their lives are minimally impacted while the general prison population resides in hothouses of coronavirus, with their lives at stake.
Oh, Lori and Mossimo are not going into the general population, this is not "Oz," they'll go to the country club prison, read, go online, and wait out their time. It'll be little different from vacation other than the food.
Our system is screwed up. We're busy focusing on these rich people gaming the college admissions system when the real story is...THEY'RE GAMING THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SYSTEM!
Want to have riots in the street?
Tell private schools that twenty five percent of their students will have to sacrifice their first college choice so the slots can be filled with the underprivileged and disadvantaged. This is why the Democrats lose. They disproportionately make up this privileged class. They're willing to lift those on the bottom up but they can't sacrifice a whit, not whatsoever, it's somebody else's fault.
As for the truly rich, the Republicans, like Jared Kushner's father, the rules never applied to them, they just buy a building and their kid gets in.
And what do you get at an elite institution? It's less about what goes on in the classroom and more about the people you meet and hang out with. Would Mark Zuckerberg have come up with the idea of Facebook if he hadn't run into the Winklevoss twins at Harvard?
As for Lori and Mossimo, they got bad legal advice from the start. Of course they were guilty, it's even come out their kids were complicit, which they denied until they fought the charge and the investigation went deeper.
Then again, the legal fees are a drop in the bucket for these two. Look at their real estate holdings. That's where celebrities make their money in L.A. today...a TV show may come and go, but if you own enough property, you'll be okay.
And if Lori had offered a mea culpa from the beginning, she could have saved her career, on Lifetime, on "Full House." America loves the repentant. I sinned, what was I thinking, give me a few lashes and let me back into the club. And speaking of the club...unless you kill someone or abuse someone sexually you're never kicked out of the celebrity/rich/elite club. So, you got caught. Members are testing the limits constantly, that's how they get ahead. Just think about Hollywood, it's built on fraud. The studios owe money to the profit participants they never pay, no matter how successful the project becomes.
So, you hire a lawyer and obfuscate. Bad strategy in this case, since Lori Loughlin is a public figure to begin with, people are interested in her life, it sells ads. She threw gasoline on the fire. And, she got bad legal advice. Never forget, lawyers are business people too, they have to make money. A reasonable attorney would have assessed the landscape and settled soon. But then the attorney would have gotten paid much less.
As for Loughlin and Giannulli... What made them think they could win, when every other parent was convicted? What made them different? Oh yeah, they didn't go to college, they don't know how to analyze the issues, which is what you learn at the elite institutions they want their kids to go to.
So, this whole fracas has turned into a celebrity story when it should be framed as an income inequality/rigged system question.
As for discouraging shenanigans in the future... If the worst offender only got a handful of months in prison, maybe it's worth the risk! Do you really think the arrests in Singergate are preventing rich parents from trying to game the system? They're just finding a different way. Because an elite education is worth more than any real property, for the rest of your life you can say "I graduated from _________" It opens doors. It gives you the imprimatur of success. It's priceless.
You'd think this was O.J., that people had died, with all this focus on Loughlin and Giannulli. But that's America today, the sideshow becomes the main show so people won't focus on the real issues. You can buy the Kardashian perfume, but you go to a school without supplies, with a low graduation rate.
Furthermore, these two won't even serve their complete sentences. Loughlin will be in for six weeks, maybe only a month, she'll be let out for good behavior or overcrowding or some such nonsense. If you think her attorneys are now off the payroll, you're nuts. It's kind of like curling, the lawyers are gonna continue to sweep the ice in order to change the speed and the direction of the stone.
And then, if they care, somewhere down the line Loughlin and Giannulli will pay someone to get them pardoned. Like Marc Rich or Michael Milken. Or maybe a good friend will do the same for no cash, like Donald Trump with Roger Stone. Loyalty is everything at the elite level, never forget, you circle the wagons and don't let info seep to the outside. For all the TMZs and Housewives shows the truth is the public knows very little what goes on with the rich and famous. And the truly rich are smart enough not to be famous, so attention is not drawn to them.
Just imagine if these two were sentenced to five years. Even two. Whew! Penalties are never stiff enough for white collar crime. If only we'd sent some Wall Streeters up the river for a decade back in 2008, that would have changed things...instead, all the wanker bankers just bitched about their bonuses and went back to wreaking havoc in the financial system. And when things get bad, the government bails them out. Whereas if you're a member of the rank and file you lost your job because of Covid-19, the federal government is sending you no more money and you're on the verge of being evicted.
America, what a country.
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