Mossimo Giannulli has been released from solitary confinement after being held there for weeks, Us Weekly reports. He is serving five months’ time for his role in the college admission scandal; his wife Lori Loughlin was released just after Christmas, having served her two-month sentence.
According to court docs, the Guess designer was supposed to be placed in isolation briefly, but was held there for an extended amount of time due to COVID.
“He was exposed to other inmates with COVID-19 and … he complained of symptoms consistent with the virus,” federal prosecutors explained in the filing on Tuesday, January 19. “During this additional quarantine, Giannulli reported suffering a headache and the loss of his sense of smell, both symptoms of COVID-19. He was immediately moved to the isolation unit, where he stayed for 14 days and received additional COVID tests. There, he had access to books, mail, and a television and could communicate with other inmates in isolation through their cells.”
He was tested on January 11th, and a negative result came back two days later. On January 13th, he was moved to minimum security, where he can spend time outside between 6 am and 6 pm.
A judge has not yet ruled on his request to serve the rest of his time from home. Prosecutors “opposed the motion,” explaining, “This possibility was not unforeseeable at the time Giannulli was sentenced, and it does not provide a basis to reduce the sentence that this Court concluded was just and appropriate.” They noted that if he was released early, the decision would be “widely publicized, thereby undermining the deterrent effect of the sentence.”