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Mossimo Giannulli Asks to Finish Prison Sentence in Home Confinement

Lori Loughlin’s husband Mossimo Giannulli’s attorney said in a new court filing that the fashion designer is struggling in solitary confinement — details

Mossimo Giannulli wants out. Fifty-six days into his five-month prison sentence for his role in the college admissions scandal, the fashion designer requested to complete his stint in home confinement, according to court documents obtained by Us Weekly.

Giannulli’s attorney, William Trach, said in the documents — which were filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Thursday, January 14 — that his 57-year-old client “was immediately placed in solitary confinement in a small cell” after reporting to the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California, on November 19, 2020. Giannulli has since spent nearly 24 hours a day in the cell, with the exception of “three short 20-minute breaks per week,” according to Trach.

Lori Loughlin’s Husband Mossimo Giannulli Asks to Finish His Prison Sentence in Home Confinement
Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli KATHERINE TAYLOR/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Before going to prison, the Mossimo founder expected “to be quarantined with other minimum security prisoners for a short period of time before being confirmed COVID-negative,” at which point he had hoped to be “released from quarantine to serve his sentence at the minimum security camp,” the filing stated.

Trach argued that the “conditions under which Mr. Giannulli has been incarcerated are far more extreme than what the court recommended,” claiming his client has only “been allowed to leave his cell to shower once every 3 days,” cannot go outside, only has “sporadic access to a telephone to contact his family” and eats “all of his meals alone in his cell.” The attorney noted that despite testing negative for COVID-19 “at least 10 separate times,” Giannulli has been forced to stay in solitary confinement because other inmates have tested positive for the deadly virus.

“[The Federal Bureau of Prison’s] desire to take action to limit the spread of COVID-19 — including by quarantining new inmates for a limited period of time to ensure they do not report to prison with the virus — is understandable, particularly in light of Lompoc’s well-documented outbreak in 2020. However, subjecting Mr. Giannulli to weeks and months of solitary quarantine at a higher security facility is fundamentally unfair and finds no support in the directives and guidance that [the Department of Justice] has issued to BOP for stopping the spread of the virus,” Trach said in the documents.

The lawyer went on to say that “every day that Mr. Giannulli spent in isolation caused harm to his physical, mental and emotional health,” which is why he has asked to be transferred to home confinement.

The Los Angeles native’s son, Gianni, revealed via Instagram in December 2020 that his father had been in solitary confinement, writing, “The mental and physical damage being done from such isolation and treatment is wrong.”

Giannulli and his wife, Lori Loughlin, pleaded guilty in May 2020 to paying $500,000 to get their daughters, Bella, 22, and Olivia Jade, 21, into the University of Southern California. While Giannulli was sentenced to five months behind bars, the Full House alum, 56, completed her two-month sentence on December 28, 2020. Us exclusively reported at the time that Loughlin spent “two weeks in isolation before she was released,” with a source explaining that “it was a [COVID-19] precaution and not a punishment.”

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Nicholas Hautman

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