Former reality television star and Atlanta multimillionaire Julie Chrisley has blasted the federal judge who resentenced her to seven years in prison on bank fraud and tax evasion charges in her bid to have the “vindictive” sentence overturned.
Chrisley, 51, asked the Atlanta-based federal appeals court Friday to vacate her sentence and send the case to a different trial judge. She said U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, who first sentenced her in 2022, retaliated against her during a resentencing hearing in September.
“Mrs. Chrisley received a vindictive and unfair sentence from a judge personally biased against her and her family,” Chrisley’s attorneys wrote in an appellate brief. “The court spent more time admonishing Mrs. Chrisley’s daughter, who was in the courtroom, for public statements she made critical of the case, which the court learned about off the record.”
Speaking to reporters immediately after the resentencing hearing, Savannah Chrisley and one of her mother’s lawyers said the judge’s in-court comments were inappropriate, upsetting and politically-driven.
Without naming Savannah Chrisley, Ross said during the hearing that she hoped those entrusted with the youngest Chrisley children’s care were not “putting false, misleading and inaccurate information out there.” The judge also said she hoped the children’s well-being was of more concern than television or podcast ratings.
Outside court, Savannah Chrisley said the idea that she would put ratings above her siblings is “laughable.”
On Friday, Julie Chrisley’s attorneys told the appeals court that Ross inexplicably imposed a harsher sentence by extending her term of supervised release from three to five years.
“Nothing in the record or the court’s explanations supported a harsher sentence,” the attorneys, Alex Little and Zach Lawson, wrote. “In fact, the opposite is true.”
Ross determined in September that Julie Chrisley’s initial seven-year prison sentence was still appropriate, though prosecutors had subsequently agreed Julie Chrisley was only directly responsible for $4.7 million of the amount that banks lost in the fraud. Ross reduced the amount of restitution against Julie Chrisley accordingly.
In 2022, Julie Chrisley and her husband, Todd Chrisley, were jointly ordered to pay $17.2 million in restitution and to forfeit the same amount. A jury found they had defrauded Atlanta-area banks of $36 million and hidden millions of dollars in income from their reality television show to avoid paying taxes.
The Chrisleys began their prison sentences, in separate facilities, in January 2023. Todd Chrisley, 56, is serving a 12-year sentence in Florida. Julie Chrisley is incarcerated in Kentucky.
In June 2024, the Atlanta-based federal appeals court upheld the Chrisleys’ convictions but ruled Julie Chrisley must be resentenced. The appellate court found sufficient evidence that Julie Chrisley had participated in the bank fraud scheme from 2007 to 2012, but said it wasn’t clear that she was involved in the conspiracy when it began in 2006.
During the resentencing hearing, Julie Chrisley apologized publicly for the first time.
“I cannot ever repay my children for what they’ve had to go through, and for that I’m sorry,” she said in court as two of her children, Savannah and Chase Chrisley, watched. “I apologize for my actions and what led me to where I am today.”
At the hearing, prosecutors asked the judge to again sentence Julie Chrisley to seven years behind bars. Prosecutor Annalise Peters said the Chrisleys “built an entire empire based on greed,” despite already being wealthy. She said Julie Chrisley’s fraud and deceit spanned more than a decade and victims included her family, her network production company and various contractors.
“This was an 11-year journey of fraud after fraud after fraud,” Peters said. “Even after the defendant knew that she was under investigation for bank fraud, she went on to commit at least three different types of fraud.”
Prosecutors now have the opportunity to respond to Julie Chrisley’s latest bid to overturn her sentence.
It’s not clear when the appeals court will make its decision.
About the Author
