Felicity Huffman’s weak prison sentence spells doom for Lori Loughlin – Washington Examiner

Lost in the hooplah over actress Felicity Huffman’s 14-day prison sentence for spending $15,000 to have her daughter’s SAT score rigged is the doom it spells for the most high-profile defendant in the entire college admissions crackdown, fellow former star of the small screen, Lori Loughlin.

Huffman’s crime of conspiracy to commit mail and honest services mail fraud may have exemplified the excesses of privilege, but just as she was the perfect criminal, documenting and joking about her crimes in multiple electronic communications, she was the perfect poster child for the feds to chastise. Huffman took the first plea deal offered, pleading guilty and issuing a public statement of comprehensive contrition. The feds wanted to make an example of her, and she let them, sending a national signal to any other spoiled millionaires that they, too, would be humiliated and disciplined if met with the full force of the law.

Loughlin is a different story. Her crime alone was egregiously worse, spending half a million dollars on Rick Singer’s fraud scheme and infamously getting two daughters into USC by having them (possibly knowingly) fabricate identities as rowers. But other parents caught in the scheme spent many millions more than the Full House star. She became most important in the scheme not during the operation itself, but once the feds issued their indictments, and Loughlin automatically became the poster child of the case.

Loughlin’s refusal to demonstrate a modicum of remorse is significant. She charted the opposite course of Huffman once caught, gallivanting with the press and signing autographs instead of keeping a low profile. Despite the severity of her crime, she rejected her plea deal offer. Last month, one of the daughters who could be prosecuted posted a photo of her flipping off the media to her Instagram account.

If you’re a federal court attempting to discourage anyone else from participating in such a scheme again, then it makes sense to a draw a sentencing contrast between Huffman, the humbled penitent, and Loughlin, the epitome of hubris and magnet of populist rage.

So yes, that 14-day sentence may feel like a slap in the face of Atiba Parker, who was sentenced to 42 years in prison for selling fewer than three grams of crack, or Alvin Kennard, who was sentenced to life without parole for stealing $50.75 from a bakery. But the important signal was that they sentenced her to any prison time at all, and that could spell danger for what Loughlin’s sentence might be.