Welcome to Notes From a Non-parent #12
Hey, it’s not like celebrity-felon parents Mossimo Giannulli and Lori Loughlin’s choices were about their daughters’ academic goals, let alone the ascension of their character through a journey in studies. Greedy schmucks got their daughters kicked out of school.
According to U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton, Giannulli’s and Loughlin’s part in the so-called college admissions scandal was all about an “inexplicable desire to grasp even more.”
Sounds right. As for the five- and two-month (respective) staycations in federal custody? Works for me. After all, the minimal confinement isn’t the zinger.
After recounting the celebrity-felon parents’ “fairy tale life,” Judge Gorton handed down their real punishment: “Get Character or Become One.” In other words, they’re gonna have to work pretty hard to reverse their now intimate association with the worst element in American society.
Oh, I don’t mean the drug dealers, gun runners, and violent criminals who routinely stand before the same judge. I mean the vulgar cheaters of 2020: the scum of high office; the chips off the old systemic block of wealth; the suited, self-centered, swampy wall-building con-artists who bilked their own base.
For Giannulli and Loughlin, the real penalty is being seen as parents who used their own daughters to further their status, prestige, and entitlement. Their prison number is the side-eye they can expect both in person and on social media.
Gorton insisted the crimes here were made even less excusable by how unnecessary they were. “You’re not stealing bread to feed your family,” he said to Gianulli. “You certainly did know better.”
Ouch. As someone who also had to stand before a sentencing judge to truly “know better,” I’d say those words are likely to last a lot longer than 5 months.