Law360 is providing free access to its coronavirus coverage to make sure all members of the legal community have accurate information in this time of uncertainty and change. Use the form below to sign up for any of our weekly newsletters. Signing up for any of our section newsletters will opt you in to the weekly Coronavirus briefing.
Sign up for our Sports & Betting newsletter
You must correct or enter the following before you can sign up:
Thank You!
Law360 (January 20, 2021, 5:07 PM EST) -- The eight weeks of solitary quarantine that clothing designer Mossimo Giannulli underwent at the outset of his "Varsity Blues" prison sentence due to the pandemic wasn't "unforeseeable," prosecutors said in a late-Tuesday filing, objecting to his request for home confinement.
Prosecutors acknowledged that Giannulli, the husband of actress Lori Loughlin, had spent an extended period in quarantine at his minimum-security prison in Southern California. The possibility that he could be held in isolation due to quarantine procedures at the Bureau of Prisons facility, however, was well-known before Giannulli started his prison term.
Giannulli, prosecutors said, "was sentenced in the midst of the pandemic, after BOP had initiated a policy of quarantining new inmates, and could have sought a continuance of his report date."
The clothing designer said last week that he had spent 40 percent of his sentence since his November 2020 report date in solitary quarantine, and compared his case to that of another "Varsity Blues" defendant, Toby Macfarlane, whose sentence was trimmed due to a similarly long stint in isolation.
Prosecutors argued that Giannnulli's comparison fails because Macfarlane was sentenced before the pandemic struck and the possibility of quarantine couldn't have been expected. They also said Giannulli already had COVID-19 before reporting to prison, reducing the possibility that he would be re-infected or have a severe reaction to the virus.
Reducing Giannulli's sentence would also erode the deterrent effect of the sentence, because any decision by the court to go easy on him would be "widely publicized," the filing said. Prosecutors concluded that the court should leave any decision on home confinement to the BOP, which is currently sending suitable inmates home as a measure to reduce the prison population during the pandemic.
Loughlin and Giannulli were sentenced to two months and five months, respectively, after they admitted to paying $500,000 to William "Rick" Singer and University of Southern California athletics funds to designate their two daughters as athletic recruits to the university's rowing team.
The couple pled guilty in May 2020 after maintaining their innocence for more than a year. Both admitted to a count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Giannulli also pled guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.
Giannulli got the heftier sentence because he worked more closely with Singer on the plan and personally confronted his daughter's guidance counselor to stop the scheme from being uncovered, prosecutors said.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston declined to comment on the government's opposition. Representatives for Giannulli were not immediately available for comment on Wednesday.
Giannulli is represented by Perry J. Viscounty, Roman Martinez, Sean M. Berkowitz, Allison S. Blanco and William J. Trach of Latham & Watkins LLP and George W. Vien and Joshua N. Ruby of Donnelly Conroy & Gelhaar LLP.
The government is represented by Kristen A. Kearney, Justin D. O'Connell, Leslie A. Wright, Karin M. Bell and Stephen E. Frank of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.
The case is U.S. v. Colburn et al., case number 1:19-cr-10080, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
--Additional reporting by David Simpson. Editing by Regan Estes.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
