Heidi Fleiss, 53, thinks that Lori Loughlin, 55, may live to regret her decision to fight the charges she faces in the college admissions scandal case. The former “Hollywood Madam” – who became infamous in 1993 when her high-class prostitution ring was busted – thinks the Fuller House star is getting “bad advice” in the face of allegations that she and her husband Mossimo Giannulli, 56, paid $500,000 to get their daughters Olivia Jade, 20, and Isabella Rose, 21, into the University of California (USC).
Heidi made her comments mere days before the Justice Department slapped the couple with additional charges. On Oct. 22 Lori and Mossimo were accused of conspiring to “commit federal program bribery by bribing employees” of USC “to facilitate their children’s admission.” Those are on top of charges that include money laundering and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Before the bribery charges the couple already faced up to 40 years behind bars.
“[It’s] so smart to plead right away…admit it right away and get it over with right away,” Heidi told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY. Heidi – who spent 20 months of her 37-month sentence for tax evasion in FCI Dublin in Northern California – spoke to us about the camp where Felicity Huffman, 56, is currently serving 14 days after pleading guilty in the same admissions scandal case. “Two weeks you can do anything, you know what I mean?” she said. “You can handle anything. Someone can throw you in a dungeon, whatever. You can handle anything for two weeks.” Referring to Lori, Heidi added, “The other one though, she’s going to have a hard time.”
It’s that fear of the unknown – the sentence that she may face – that she thinks Lori may find hard to cope with. “Your head made something so [much] worse than it really is,” Heidi said. “It’s really hard on you. Once [it’s done] you’re like, ‘Oh, it wasn’t bad at all. My God, that was it.’”
Instead, Heidi thinks that Lori and Mossimo should donate millions of dollars to “college kids who can’t pay” for their tuition. “That’s what I would do right away because I think it’s big time, wrong approach [to fight],” she said. “It looks arrogant. It looks cocky and it just looks like more rich and white entitlement. That is my perspective.”
Asked how much time she thinks Lori may get if she’s found guilty, Heidi said, “More than six months. I think she might get an 18-month sentence.” Referring once more to the star’s decision to fight, she added, “The judge is not going to like that. It doesn’t look good.”
Lori and Mossimo have both pled not guilty to the earlier charges that they faced. HollywoodLife has reached out to their lawyers for comment on the additional bribery charge, but we’ve yet to receive a response.