Lori Loughlin Has Been Released From Prison After Serving 2 Months

While Huffman accepted a plea deal on April 8, the fate of Loughlin’s legal battle is still unknown, as she and Giannulli have yet to agree to a deal and additional charges have been added to their indictments. “She has been in complete denial and thought maybe she could skate by,” a source told E!. “She refused to accept any jail time and thought the D.A. was bluffing. She was adamant she wouldn’t do any jail time.”

“Lori is finally realizing just how serious this is,” the source continues. “She is seeing the light that she will do jail time and is freaking out.”

TMZ broke the news on Monday, April 15, that both Loughlin and Giannulli are pleading not guilty to all the charges against them in this case.

On Monday, May 13, Huffman was back in court to officially plead guilty to paying $15,000 to an admissions consultant and his nonprofit organization, Key Worldwide Foundation. People reports that she appeared in court holding hands with her brother and started crying as she reiterated that her daughter knew nothing about the scheme. She will be sentenced on September 13, but prosecutors recommended four months in prison and a $20,000 fine.

On Monday, June 10, Huffman was spotted attending her daughter Sophia’s high school graduation. Per Us Weekly, she wore a blue floral sundress and appeared to be in good spirits, chatting with friends.

On July 31, a source told Us Weekly that Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose had been kicked out of their sorority at USC. According to the source, both of them were part of Kappa Kappa Gamma, a sorority that includes about 60,000 women across 140 collegiate chapters. However, the organization reportedly removed the sisters amid the scandal “and is trying to distance themselves from the situation as much as possible.”

In the lead-up to Huffman’s sentencing, the former Desperate Housewives actress, along with 27 of her closest friends, including costar Eva Longoria and husband William H. Macy, sent Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts letters in support of the actor and mother, with the hopes of her receiving less jail time. In Huffman’s letter, which was obtained by People and made public on September 6, she explains her involvement in the scam was an accident: Huffman’s daughter Sophia had poor math scores on the SATs, which she believed would prevent her from getting into an acting program.

Ultimately, those poor test scores led Huffman to seek help from a college admissions consultant named Rick Singer, who she says convinced her to commit the crime. She wrote, “To my utter shame, I finally agreed to cheating on Sophia’s SAT scores, and also considered doing the same thing for [her other daughter] Georgia.”

“Please, let me be very clear, I know there is no justification for what I have done. Yes, there is a bigger picture, but ultimately it doesn’t matter because I could have said ‘No’ to cheating on the SAT scores,” Huffman wrote. “I unequivocally take complete responsibility for my actions and will respectfully accept whatever punishment the court deems appropriate.”

She added, “In my desperation to be a good mother I talked myself into believing that all I was doing was giving my daughter a fair shot. I see the irony in that statement now because what I have done is the opposite of fair. I have broken the law, deceived the educational community, betrayed my daughter, and failed my family.”

Macy, her husband of 22 years, wrote a letter that stressed how traumatic the scandal has been for his daughters. He wrote of his youngest daughter Georgia, “After watching the six FBI agents put her handcuffed Mom into a car and drive her away, she cried. The next day she said she wanted to go to school, but as the news of the case became a firestorm she had to come home.” He says his other daughter, Sophia, “still doesn’t like to sleep alone and has nightmares from FBI agents waking her that morning with guns drawn.”

In her letter, Eva Longoria focused on Huffman’s good nature and willingness to bring Longoria, who was new to the entertainment industry at the time of the Desperate Housewives first season, under her wing as a friend. She wrote, “From the first table read of the script, she noticed me sitting alone, scared and unsure of where to go and what to do. Her gentle character and kind heart immediately opened up to me. She approached me, introduced herself and said, ‘Don’t be scared, we will get through this together.’”