After a trial, Todd and Julie Chrisley were found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion
After almost three weeks of testimony from prosecutors and witnesses, a federal jury in Atlanta found the reality stars guilty of tax evasion and bank fraud, the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta told the Associated Press.
According to a court document that NBC News got its hands on, the Chrisley Knows Best cast was indicted by the federal government on 12 counts in August 2019, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
According to the Associated Press, the couple pled not guilty to the allegations but were convicted guilty on all counts on June 7.
Todd’s lawyer, Bruce Morris, told E! The news said that he was “disappointed in the result” and that an appeal would be filed.
According to Insider, the couple could face up to 30 years in prison. At a later date, they will be sentenced.
Todd responded to the indictment with a message denying any misconduct.
“We have nothing to hide and nothing to be embarrassed about,” he wrote with a photo of his family on Instagram. “Not only do we know we didn’t do anything illegal, but we have a ton of concrete evidence and a slew of corroborating witnesses to back it up.”
Todd attributed the legal wrangling to a former employee who was fired in 2012 after the Chrisleys discovered he had been “stealing from us big time.” According to him, the worker retaliated against the family by sending “forged documents” to the US attorney’s office and telling federal prosecutors that “we had done all kinds of financial crimes.”
According to the Insider, who cited court documents, federal prosecutors claimed Todd, his wife Julie, and their accountant, Peter Tarantino, filed phony bank documents and lied about their wealth when seeking loans from 2007 through 2012.
Todd, Julie, and Peter were charged with five counts of bank fraud, one count of bank fraud conspiracy, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, and one count of tax fraud, respectively. Julie was also charged with one count of obstruction of justice and one count of wire fraud, as well as two counts of wilfully filing false tax forms by the accountant.
E! News says that in October 2019, Todd and Julie were cleared of a state tax evasion charge in Georgia.
Between 2008 and 2016, the Georgia Department of Revenue said the couple didn’t pay nearly $2 million in state taxes. However, the office later found that the couple had overpaid the state and owed less than $77,000 in back taxes for only one year of wrong reporting.
“Julie and I knew all along that we had done nothing illegal and that once the facts were all out, we would be fine,” Todd said at the time in an interview with E! news. “All we can say is that we’re grateful that the Department of Revenue was prepared to keep an open mind and consider all of the information.”
