While Lori Loughlin and her husband J. Mossimo Giannulli may be under a great deal of stress amid the college admissions scandal, the couple is committed to sticking together.
“Lori and Mossimo are united in this,” a Loughlin legal source tells PEOPLE.
“They’re going to face this together, and they believe that together they can beat this and move on with their lives,” says the source. “You won’t see one of them turning on the other.”
- For more on Lori Loughlin and her involvement in the college admissions scandal, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday
On March 12, the U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts announced it had indicted Loughlin, 55, and Giannulli, 56, in the shocking nationwide scam dubbed Operation Varsity Blues.
The pair and nearly 50 other parents, coaches, exam proctors and admissions counselors are accused of such actions as paying for boosted SAT scores and lying about students’ athletic skills in order to gain them acceptance to elite colleges including Yale, Georgetown and Stanford.
Loughlin and Giannulli allegedly paid $500,000 to admissions consultant William “Rick” Singer to falsely designate daughters Olivia Jade, 19, and Isabella Rose, 20, as recruits to the University of Southern California crew team, though neither actually participated in the sport.
Loughlin and Giannulli are due back in court Aug. 27, when they’re expected to waive their rights to separate attorneys, as both are being represented by attorneys from the same law firm in order to put forth a “united front.”
According to legal expert James J. Leonard Jr., Esq., that decision comes with one potential downside. “The risk with any joint defense is that one defendant may be more culpable than another and the less culpable defendant could suffer as a result of a strategy designed to protect that individual,” says Leonard.
“Lori is ready for this to be over,” says the source. “They all are. At this point it would be better to spend a few months in jail — because she’s been spending the last several months in her own prison.”
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