Former Atlanta multimillionaire and reality television star Julie Chrisley is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, which handles the transport of federal prisoners, the agency told the AJC Wednesday. There is a federal prison transfer facility in Atlanta, where Chrisley is due in court later this month.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons previously declined to provide location information for Chrisley, 51, citing “safety, security, or privacy reasons.”
“Incarcerated individuals who were previously in FBOP custody and who have not completed their sentence may be outside FBOP custody for a period of time for court hearings, medical treatment, or other reasons,” a spokesperson said.
The bureau’s inmate locator states Chrisley’s projected release date is in May 2028.
Savannah Chrisley talked about her parents’ criminal case on her latest public podcast episode Tuesday, but did not mention her mother’s location. In a July podcast episode, Savannah Chrisley said her mother had become ill from the heat inside prison.
Julie Chrisley is serving a seven-year prison sentence, having been found guilty of single counts of tax evasion, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud and obstruction of justice, as well as five counts of bank fraud. Her husband, Todd Chrisley, is serving a 12-year prison sentence after being found guilty of the eight charges he faced.
Julie Chrisley has been serving her sentence in a federal prison in Kentucky. She is due to be resentenced Sept. 25 after federal appellate judges questioned whether she participated in the first year of the bank fraud conspiracy that ran from 2006 to 2012. The judges found sufficient evidence of Julie Chrisley’s participation from 2007 onward.
In late July, Julie Chrisley’s attorneys asked if she could remain in the Kentucky prison during her resentencing hearing in Atlanta, to avoid an almost 400-mile trip shackled in a prison van. They said the trip would pose an “undue physical hardship.”
U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross denied the request, saying in an order that the court “will follow its standard practice of requiring the defendant to appear in person for sentencing.” On Aug. 7, the judge commanded federal authorities, including the U.S. Marshals Service, to ensure that Julie Chrisley is in court for the resentencing and “thence to be returned to the custody from which she came.”
In their bid for Julie Chrisley to participate in her resentencing remotely from prison, her attorneys said the Federal Bureau of Prisons “likely would transfer her via the transfer facility in Oklahoma City or place her in a van for a lengthy, multiple-hour trip while shackled to facilitate her appearance in court.”
Todd Chrisley, 56, is serving his sentence at a federal prison in Florida. His projected release date is in August 2032.
The Chrisleys, who landed a reality television show about their family in 2013, began their prison sentences in January 2023. They were also ordered to pay $17.2 million in restitution and to forfeit the same amount.
Jurors found that the Chrisleys had lied to banks throughout metro Atlanta to obtain $36 million in loans and hid their income from the Internal Revenue Service to avoid paying the more than $500,000 in federal taxes that Todd Chrisley owed for the 2009 tax year.
The Chrisleys’ former accountant, Peter Tarantino, was prosecuted alongside them and found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States and two counts of aiding the filing of false tax returns. He was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay a $35,000 fine.
In June, the Atlanta-based federal appeals court upheld the trio’s convictions.
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