Aunt Becky to Prosecutors: 'No, YOU'RE the Bad Guys!'

Aunt Becky is in real danger of going to jail over her alleged involvement in the college admissions scandal, but she certainly seems to be doubling down on that whole “paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to bribe your kid’s way into school isn’t a crime” thing. (In fairness, sometimes that is technically true, if still morally bankrupt.)

Indeed, NBC News (and TMZ) took a look at some legal documents filed by Lori Loughlin and husband Mossimo Giannulli’s lawyers, and they seem to claim the couple made “legitimate donations” to get their two daughters accepted at the University of Southern California.

Prosecutors disagree, of course, but it seems Loughlin and Giannulli’s defense tactic is to accuse these prosecutors of actively withholding evidence that would show the $500,ooo they allegedly spent—to stage photos of their kids on rowing machines so they could be snuck in as crew team recruits, as a refresher—was in fact legitimate.

Per the docs, as published by TMZ:

“At trial, Giannulli and Loughlin will help establish their innocence by showing that they understood both sets of payments to be legitimate donations and did not understand or intent that either set of payments would be used to directly or indirectly bribe Heinel [former USC senior associate athletic director].”

Aunt Becky’s not the only parent charged in the scandal to use this defense tactic, and it sounds like it might even work—apparently, if USC actually did know about the payments, parents could claim the bribery was in fact institutionalized. Which means the three-and-half minutes Felicity Huffman spent in jail was time wasted indeed, if still great fodder for her future memoir on Life in Prison, $1 million advance included.