As they raked in more than $600,000 a month through their real estate ventures, Todd and Julie Chrisley lied to banks throughout metro Atlanta to obtain $36 million in loans, a federal jury found. The couple’s bank fraud scheme lasted six years, ending just before they landed a reality television show about their family in 2013, court records show.
While cameras followed them around Roswell and Alpharetta for episodes of “Chrisley Knows Best,” the then-multimillionaires were hiding their income from the Internal Revenue Service, federal prosecutors proved during a three-week trial in Atlanta. The jurors were convinced that it was an effort to avoid paying the more than $500,000 in federal taxes that Todd Chrisley owed for the 2009 tax year.
In June 2022, the Chrisleys were convicted of every charge they faced. Todd Chrisley, 56, 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, 51, was found guilty of the same charges, as well as single counts of wire fraud and obstruction of justice.
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.
In June 2024, the Atlanta-based federal appeals court upheld the Chrisleys’ convictions but ruled that 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.
Julie Chrisley’s resentencing has been scheduled for Sept. 25. 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.
Bank fraud
Todd Chrisley’s real estate company, Chrisley Asset Management, was at the center of the couple’s bank fraud, court records show. The Chrisleys’ then-business partner, Mark Braddock, helped them obtain loans and lines of credit for the company by lying about the Chrisleys’ income and assets.
Braddock was granted immunity by the federal government and testified against the Chrisleys at trial. He explained that one of the falsehoods used to secure millions of dollars in loans was that the Chrisleys had $4 million in assets with investment service Merrill Lynch, where in reality they never had more than $17,000.
During trial, the Chrisleys blamed Braddock for the bank fraud, claiming he acted alone. Neither the jury nor the appellate court bought it. Prosecutors showed that Todd Chrisley responded to one of Braddock’s doctored documents with “you are a (expletive) genius!!!! just make it show 4 mil+.” Julie Chrisley’s involvement included her instructing Braddock to change the post date on a check and bank statement, case records show.
The Chrisleys’ name for falsifying documents was “scrapbooking.” Braddock testified that Julie Chrisley’s nickname at the time was “ass on fire” because she drove across metro Atlanta paying off late-due loan amounts. Her own company, Select Real Estate Holdings, received two fraudulently obtained loans in 2007 and 2008, prosecutors said.
“There is no mystery as to whether the Chrisleys participated in making false statements to the victim banks; they did,” the appeals court said in its ruling. “Evidence showed the (Chrisleys) intended to mislead the banks.”
Tax evasion
The Chrisleys’ created a company called 7C’s Productions to receive the millions of dollars they were paid for their television show, according to court records. The company’s account was in Julie Chrisley’s name.
The jury found that the couple used 7C’s to hide their income from the IRS, so the federal government couldn’t collect the more than $500,000 that Todd Chrisley individually owed for the 2009 tax year. Prosecutors showed that Todd Chrisley had access to the 7C’s account and used it for personal expenses including payments for Chick-fil-A, utility bills, shopping and vacations.
On the day after the IRS started investigating accounts owned by Julie Chrisley, she transferred the 7C’s account to Todd Chrisley’s mother, Faye Chrisley, court records show. A new 7C’s bank account was also opened in Faye Chrisley’s name, and Todd Chrisley instructed his talent agent to deposit money into that account.
The Chrisleys’ then-accountant, Peter Tarantino, only gave the IRS information about the first 7C’s account, the appellate court noted. It said Tarantino “did not mention that the account changed owners or that the Chrisleys’ future payments would all be to a new account” and that Tarantino “made false statements to federal agents to keep the IRS off the trail.”
The Chrisleys also did not file their federal tax returns or pay taxes from 2013 to 2016, only doing so once they became aware in 2018 that they were under criminal investigation by the IRS, court records show. By the time they were sentenced, they had paid their tax debts.
Tarantino additionally filed 7C’s corporate tax returns for 2015 and 2016, falsely claiming that the company earned zero dollars and made zero distributions during that period.
Tarantino, 61, was prosecuted alongside the Chrisleys and convicted 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.
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