New Information Surfaces About Students Implicated in College Bribery Scandal

Lori Laughlin's daughter Olivia Giannulli and Georgetown student Isabelle Henriquez spoke about their college admissions prior to the bribery scandal.

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UPDATED 7:49 p.m. ET: TMZ reports that Lori Loughlin's daughter, Olivia Jade, spent the night in the Bahamas on a yacht that belonged to billionaire Rick Caruso, the Chairman of USC's Board of Trustees. Jade has since left the yacht after finding out the news of her mother's legal issues. The 19-year-old Olivia is reportedly friends with Caruso's daughter Gianna.

"My daughter and a group of students left for spring break prior to the government's announcement yesterday," Caruso told TMZ. "Once we became aware of the investigation, the young woman decided it would be in her best interests to return home."

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A massive college admissions scandal has implicated a network of affluent parents, including celebrities Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who allegedly used bribery to ensure their children were admitted to some of the most competitive schools in the country. Amid the allegations that have landed both Huffman and Loughlin in FBI custody, details surrounding some of the children who's parents acted on their behalf have surfaced.

According to the New York Times, Loughlin's 19-year-old daughter is a widely followed social media influencer. Olivia Jade Giannulli, who started her first semester at the University of Southern California last fall partnered with numerous brands whose target audiences include college students, and capitalized on her newfound student status by incorporating it into her online persona.

"Officially a college student!," Olivia wrote on Instagram. "It’s been a few weeks since I moved into my dorm and I absolutely love it. I got everything I needed from Amazon with @primestudent and had it all shipped to me in just two-days."

However, despite the thousands of dollars Loughlin allegedly paid to secure her daughter's admission, Giannulli admitted in a YouTube video in August that she was only interested in attending college for the social aspects. "I don’t know how much of school I’m gonna attend but I’m gonna go in and talk to my deans and everyone, and hope that I can try and balance it all," she said. "But I do want the experience of like game days, partying…I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know."

The Times also notes that despite her 2018 fall semester beginning on Aug. 20, the young influencer announced a day later that she was in Fiji, allegedly for work. 

According to the federal investigation termed "Operation Varsity Blues," Laughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, paid up to $500,000 so that Olivia and her sister Isabella would be listed as recruits for the USC crew team. Neither one of Laughlin's daughters reportedly row crew. 

In a resurfaced interview on the Today Show from 2017, Loughlin discussed how emotional she felt when thinking about sending her children off to college. "I think I'm in complete denial, I really am, because when I think about it too much it will make me cry," she told the hosts. She appeared on the morning talk show alongside her daughter Isabella and expressed how proud she was of her. 

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Georgetown student Isabelle Henriquez, who has similarly been implicated in the scandal, is one of the only kids who willingly participated in the scam. Isabelle is the daughter of Manuel and Elizabeth Henriquez, who allegedly paid up to $425,000 to the Edge College & Career Network, which aided parents in their fradulent attempts to secure admission in elite universities. Referred to as "The Key," the network allegedly helped students cheat on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT, facilitate bribes between parents and athletic scouts, and fabricate admissions paperwork.  

The Henriquez's allegedly paid The Key to find a proctor that sat with Isabelle while she took the SAT's and corrected her answers as she went. According to the complaint, "After the exam, he ‘gloated’ with Elizabeth Henriquez and her daughter about the fact that they had cheated and gotten away with it." Despite only getting a 1900 out of 2400 on the exam, the network helped the family bribe Georgetown's tennis coach into classifying Isabelle as a recruit for the team.

William Rick Singer, founder of The Key, is reportedly coooperating with federal investigators. His charges include racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and obstruction of justice. 

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