Lori Loughlin returns to acting in 'When Calls the Heart' spinoff after college admissions scandal

Lori Loughlin is making headlines today, but this time, it's good news.

Exclusively reported by Deadline's Nellie Andreeva, Loughlin's first acting gig after the college admissions scandal will be reprising her When Calls the Heart role of Abigail Stanton for spinoff series When Hope Calls. 

The spinoff's second season is GAC Family's first original series, per Andreeva—a new network that launched Monday. The 57-year-old actress' appearance is slated for Dec. 18's two-part premiere titled When Hope Calls: A Country Christmas.

Loughlin was enmeshed in a nation-wide college admissions scandal that was uncovered in spring 2019. 

"Beginning in or about 2011, and continuing through the present, the defendants—principally individuals whose high-school aged children were applying to college—conspired with others to use bribery and other forms of fraud to facilitate their children's admission to colleges and universities in the District of Massachusetts and elsewhere, including Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California, and the University of California – Los Angeles, among others," an FBI affidavit stated in March 2019, as relayed by E! News.

Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, were found to have paid bribes up to $500,000 in order to get their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose, into USC under the false pretense that they were being recruited by the USC crew team. Olivia and Isabella were no longer enrolled at the university by October 2019.

Loughlin was formally charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, Giannulli with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud, and both pled guilty in May 2020.