Lori Loughlin accused of laundering - Fraud scandal at US universities is expanding

The bribery scandal at US universities is expanding: Several accused must now also answer for money laundering. Among them is actress Lori Loughlin.

The 54-year-old and her husband and 14 other parents are alleged to have paid bribes and other payments to a charitable organization of mastermind Rick Singer, the Boston State Procuratorate in Massachusetts said.

In addition, they are referred for fraud purposes money from outside the United States in the country. The parents face imprisonment and severe fines. Lori Loughlin is known from the sitcom "Full House", her husband is the fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli.

To place their children in Yale, Stanford or Georgetown dozens of celebrities and other wealthy parents bribed employees at colleges and universities in the United States. In some cases paid representatives made the university entrance exams for the offspring, in others the results of the celebrity children were corrected upwards. Sometimes sports coaches and other employees were bribed to accommodate the students as athletes at the universities.

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Loughlin and Giannulli are said to have paid half a million dollars to secure their two daughters university places as rowwomen at the University of Southern California, although the young women are not athletes.

In the scandal, US actress Felicity Huffman, ("Desperate Housewives") pleaded guilty on Monday. According to the indictment, Huffman - disguised as a donation - paid $ 15,000 (equivalent to 13,300 euros) in bribes to ensure that her eldest daughter's answers to the nationwide placement test SAT were subsequently corrected.

Huffman, who has two daughters from her marriage to actor William H. Macy, was arrested in Los Angeles in mid-March and was tried in Boston in early April. You face several years imprisonment and a fine.