⚖️ Varsity Blues: Huffman $15K, 14 days; Loughlin $500K, 2 months

Operation Varsity Blues came with a price list, and the filings are generous with it. Felicity Huffman admitted paying $15,000 and was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, who first pleaded not guilty, later pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two months and five months, CNN reported, citing the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

Here is the receipts-first version: who paid what, and what the court did about it.

The price list

The Justice Department's March 12, 2019 announcement said Singer's clients paid between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, with the payments structured as donations to the Key Worldwide Foundation, a charity he established. It also alleged that parents paid Singer approximately $25 million to bribe coaches and university administrators. Those were allegations in charging documents; Singer later pleaded guilty, NBC News reported.

Huffman: the cheapest ticket

The Los Angeles Times reported that Huffman's $15,000 was the lowest amount paid in the scandal. She pleaded guilty on May 13, 2019 and told the court, in NBC News's account, "Everything else that Mr. Rosen said I did, I did." Prosecutors asked for a month in prison, NPR reported; her lawyers asked for probation, 250 hours of community service and a $20,000 fine.

Judge Talwani gave her 14 days, making her the first parent sentenced, NPR reported. The New York Times reported that prosecutors asked for less than for many other parents partly because she paid less and chose not to repeat the plan for her younger child. After the sentence she said in a statement, "I broke the law." CNN later reported she spent 11 days in jail.

Loughlin and Giannulli: $500,000 and a change of plea

Prosecutors alleged the couple paid $500,000 to have their two daughters designated crew recruits at USC. The New York Times, describing the complaint, reported that $100,000 went as two $50,000 payments to Donna Heinel, a USC athletics administrator, and $400,000 to Singer's foundation, in two $200,000 payments after each admission letter.

The pair initially pleaded not guilty and changed their pleas in May 2020, CNN reported. In a sentencing memo, prosecutors wrote that Giannulli was the more active participant and that Loughlin took a less active role but was "fully complicit." Giannulli told the court, "I take full responsibility for my conduct." Loughlin said, "I am truly, profoundly and deeply sorry."

"You were not stealing bread to feed your family."

Judge Nathaniel Gorton to Giannulli at sentencing, as reported by CNN, Aug. 21, 2020

Where the other parents landed

The Los Angeles Times reported in February 2020 that Douglas Hodge, the former Pimco chief executive, was ordered to spend nine months in prison and pay a $750,000 fine for bribes totaling $850,000. He said prosecutors had "the facts wrong" on one allegation about his children. Fox News reported that Agustin Huneeus, who agreed to pay a total of $300,000, received five months and a $100,000 fine.

Set side by side, the sums and the sentences do not move in a straight line. Huffman paid the least on record and served the least. Giannulli paid a third of what Hodge did and got a little over half his prison time. That is the filing and the sentencing record; the arithmetic is the judges' business.

Singer: the sum with no sentence in this file

Singer is the one name in the table with blanks. An archived Justice Department release from March 2021 said he had pleaded guilty and had not yet been sentenced; that page shows nothing after its snapshot date, and the sentencing documents are not among the sources read for this piece.