Lori Loughlin expected to be released from prison by Christmas
There is a very good chance Lori Loughlin will get her wish of being home for the holidays.
The Full House actress, serving her two-month sentence for the college admissions scandal, now has an official release date on the books by the Bureau of Prisons and it’s Dec. 27. But — with it being a holiday weekend — she is expected to be sprung earlier, as is standard protocol, not a celebrity perk.
Loughlin, who reportedly worked with a prison consultant before arriving at Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, in California, made a smart move turning herself in early on Oct. 30, weeks ahead of her Nov. 19 surrender date. She will now likely have days shaved off her release. First, because her release falls on a weekend, a Sunday, she would ordinarily be freed the Friday before — as is normal policy for inmates who are set to be released on weekends. However, that Friday is a legal holiday, Christmas Day, so she would be sprung the last preceding weekday before that: Christmas Eve.
Not to release prisoners on weekends or holidays is standard per the BOP Program Statement 5140.36, which notes, “The Bureau of Prisons may release an inmate whose release date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, on the last preceding weekday....”
That clause was cited with Felicity Huffman, who was sentenced to 14 days in the same low-security prison in the same case in 2019. The Desperate Housewives star was supposed to be released on Sunday, Oct. 27 — which would have been her 13th day of incarceration — but she left Friday, Oct. 25, serving just 11 days. Huffman also gained a day of credit for time served for the day of her arrest, which saw her being taken into custody, guns drawn, by the FBI.
While Loughlin happened to be out of the country working when the college admissions scandal blew up and arrests were made, she surrendered to the FBI at a pre-arranged date in March 2019 and was released hours later after a hearing. So, similar to Huffman, that could — or may already have — earned a day of credit, or it may already have been applied.
A spokesperson for Loughlin’s prison has not yet responded to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment. However, we also reached out to Christopher Zoukis, author of the Directory of Federal Prisons and Managing Director of the Zoukis Consulting Group. In his opinion, he thinks Christmas Eve will be the day.
“Since Ms. Loughlin has a release date of 12/27 (Sunday), and it is preceded by a Saturday (12/26) and Christmas (12/25), I think it highly likely that she is released on December 24 (Thursday),” Zoukis says.
Loughlin went to prison early with the intent to hopefully be home for the holidays — and to start 2021 with that part of her sentence behind her. (Upon release, she start serving two years of supervised release and complete 100 hours of community service. She already paid a $150,000 fine.)
“She hopes to be home by Christmas, but she’ll definitely be home by New Year’s,” a Loughlin source told People magazine the day she surrendered. “She had everything in order, so she decided a couple of days ago to report to prison. She can put this behind her as she goes into 2021.”
If Loughlin is home for Christmas, she can spend it with her two daughters — Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli — but not her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, who has until Nov. 19 to surrender for his own 5-month prison term in the scheme, which saw the couple pay a college admissions fixer $500,000 to get their daughters into University of Southern California falsely as crew recruits.
For the first two weeks of Loughlin’s prison sentence, she’s is by herself in quarantine, not with the general population, per COVID-19 protocol. And contrary to a tabloid report, she is not a “wreck” in prison, a source tells Yahoo. She’s just eager to put it all behind her.
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