ATLANTA -- A federal judge was set to re-sentence reality TV star Julie Chrisley on Wednesday after an appeals court ordered a new sentence for her conviction on bank fraud and tax evasion charges.Chrisley and her husband, Todd Chrisley, gained fame on their show “Chrisley Knows Best,” which followed their tight-knit family and extravagant lifestyle.A jury in 2022 found them guilty of conspiring to defraud community banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans.
The Chrisleys were also found guilty of tax evasion by hiding their earnings.The couple’s accountant, Peter Tarantino, stood trial with them and was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States and willfully filing false tax returns.A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals in June upheld the convictions of the Chrisleys and Tarantino but found a legal error in how the trial judge had calculated Julie Chrisley’s sentence by holding her accountable for the entire bank fraud scheme.
So the appellate panel sent her case back to the lower court for re-sentencing.Federal prosecutors argued in a court filing this month that the judge should give Julie Chrisley the same seven-year sentence she originally imposed.Chrisley's lawyers asked for a total sentence of no more than five years, writing that her two youngest children have been struggling with “day-to-day functioning” in her absence.Before the Chrisleys became reality television stars, they and a former business partner submitted false documents to banks in the Atlanta area to obtain fraudulent loans, prosecutors said during the trial.
They accused the couple of spending lavishly on luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate and travel, and using new fraudulent loans to pay off old ones.Todd Chrisley then filed for bankruptcy, according to prosecutors, walking away from more than $20 million in unpaid loans.Julie Chrisley was sentenced to serve seven years in federal prison and Todd Chrisley got 12 years behi...