Julie Chrisley has asked an Atlanta judge to let her stay in prison in Kentucky during her upcoming resentencing hearing in September, to avoid an almost 400-mile trip shackled in a prison van.
The former Atlanta-based reality television star and multimillionaire said it would be an “undue physical hardship” for her to be transported from the federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky to the federal trial court in Atlanta where she’s due to be resentenced on Sept. 25.
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,” Chrisley’s attorneys said in a July 31 court filing on her behalf.
“Either option would remove Mrs. Chrisley from (the prison in) Lexington for an unnecessarily extended period of time and impose undue physical hardship on her,” the attorneys said.
The Atlanta-based federal appeals court recently upheld the convictions of Todd and Julie Chrisley after they were found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion, but ordered the trial judge to resentence Julie Chrisley.
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The appellate court found sufficient evidence that Julie Chrisley had participated in the $36 million 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.
The trial judge has been instructed to determine how much of the bank fraud Julie Chrisley is responsible for and therefore how much she should forfeit and pay in restitution.
Todd and Julie Chrisley were sentenced in November 2022, to 12 and seven years in prison, respectively. They were jointly ordered to pay $17.2 million in restitution and to forfeit the same amount. The Chrisleys began their prison sentences, in separate facilities, in January 2023.
Julie Chrisley, 51, can participate remotely in her resentencing from prison, via videoconference, her attorneys said. They said the federal prosecutors in the case don’t oppose the request.
Todd Chrisley, 56, is serving his sentence in a federal prison in Pensacola, Florida.
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
The couple landed a reality television show about their family in 2013. Cameras followed them around Roswell and Alpharetta for episodes of “Chrisley Knows Best” before they moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
Prosecutors said the Chrisleys 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 were indicted in August 2019 alongside their former accountant, Peter Tarantino. All three defendants pleaded not guilty and were tried before a jury over three weeks in May and June of 2022. They were found guilty of every charge they faced.
Todd Chrisley was found guilty of single counts of tax evasion, conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, as well as five counts of bank fraud. Julie Chrisley was found guilty of the same charges, as well as single counts of wire fraud and obstruction of justice.
Credit: (Photo by: Tommy Garcia/USA Network)
Credit: (Photo by: Tommy Garcia/USA Network)
Tarantino was 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. Tarantino’s convictions were also upheld on appeal.
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