Giannulli loses bid for home release

BOSTON — Fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli’s request to serve the remaining three months of his prison term in the college admissions bribery scheme at home was denied Tuesday by a federal judge.

Giannulli argued he should be released to home confinement for the rest of his fivemonth sentence because he spent eight weeks under “extreme” conditions in solitary confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic after reporting to prison in November.

But U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton said Giannulli failed to demonstrate an “‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason warranting his release,” though he noted that the quarantine was “longer than anticipated.”

An email seeking comment was sent to lawyers for Giannulli.

Giannulli, who reported to prison on Nov. 19, believed he would only be held in quarantine for a short time before testing negative for the coronavirus, his lawyers said in court documents. Instead, he spent 56 days isolated in a small cell at California’s USP Lompoc before being transferred to a minimum security camp on Jan. 13, they said.

“Mr. Giannulli spent almost 40 percent of his total sentence confined in solitary quarantine, despite testing negative for COVID-19 at least ten times and despite his counsel’s multiple requests that (the Bureau of Prisons) release him from quarantine,” his lawyers wrote in a motion filed earlier this month.

“The toll on Mr. Giannulli’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being has been significant,” they wrote.