Dayton Daily News

Why Todd Chrisley wants a new trial

- By Rosie Manins The Atlanta JournalCon­stitution

ATLANTA — As he serves a 12-year prison sentence in Florida on federal bank fraud and tax evasion charges, former multimilli­onaire and reality television star Todd Chrisley is pushing for a new trial, claiming the jury heard false testimony and saw evidence from an illegal warehouse raid.

The 56-year-old has asked the federal appeals court in Atlanta to acquit him on two tax-related charges and allow him to return to trial on six bank fraud charges. His lawyer is due to argue his case today before a panel of judges in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Chrisley’s appeal cites the testimony of an IRS officer who said during a 2022 trial that Chrisley and his wife still owed federal taxes from 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016. In his new trial request, Chrisley said the officer admitted after trial that the money had been paid.

“Her testimony left the misimpress­ion that the Chrisleys still owed substantia­l sums to the IRS when in fact the IRS had been failing to apply payments that the Chrisleys previously made,” Chrisley told the appeals court. “All told, the IRS owed the Chrisleys substantia­l refunds, not the other way around.”

Chrisley said he raised the issue with the federal trial judge in Atlanta who presided over the case, but that she refused without proper explanatio­n to grant a new trial, even after prosecutor­s admitted that they knew the officer’s testimony was false and did nothing to correct it.

Prosecutor­s told the appeals court that the trial judge found no evidence that they or the officer knew her testimony was incorrect. The officer testified to the best of her recollecti­on, prosecutor­s said.

“There is no reasonable likelihood that any alleged false testimony could have affected the verdict,” prosecutor­s said. “The jury also had ample evidence to convict the Chrisleys of willfully evading payment of the $500,000 that Todd owed on his 2009 taxes.”

Chrisley is also challengin­g evidence that he claims was illegally obtained by the Georgia Department of Revenue and turned over to federal investigat­ors. The state agency launched its own investigat­ion of the Chrisleys’ taxes, which was settled in 2019.

Part of the state probe involved a warrantles­s search of a locked warehouse where the Chrisleys stored personal items, Chrisley said. He said officers from the state department seized “massive amounts of furniture, personal property, and about 20 boxes containing documents, including financial records that the agents believed to be fraudulent.”

Though the trial judge suppressed evidence from the warehouse search, she let federal prosecutor­s rely on the informatio­n they gleaned from it, Chrisley argued.

Prosecutor­s said they independen­tly obtained through email search warrants electronic versions of the documents recovered in the warehouse search.

The Chrisleys filed a civil lawsuit against one of the state tax investigat­ors and recently settled that case for $1 million. Chrisley was separately found liable for slandering another Georgia Department of Revenue investigat­or and ordered to pay her $755,000.

Chrisley’s attempt to nix his tax evasion conviction­s centers on the fact that he and his family members featured on the “Chrisley Knows Best” reality television show were paid via a company called 7C’s Production­s Inc. Chrisley said receiving income through a company is a legitimate and standard practice in the entertainm­ent industry, and that there was no evidence the use of 7C’s was unlawful.

Prosecutor­s claimed the Chrisleys used 7C’s to hide from the IRS the more than $6 million they made from the show, keeping Todd Chrisley’s name off the company and its bank accounts to evade paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstandin­g taxes.

Appellate judges are also set to consider Friday whether Chrisley’s wife, Julie Chrisley, should be acquitted on five bank fraud charges and resentence­d on five other counts. She is serving a seven-year prison sentence in the case.

Former Atlanta multimilli­onaires and reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley are appealing their bank fraud and tax evasion conviction­s.

Former Atlanta multimilli­onaires and reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley are appealing their bank fraud and tax evasion conviction­s.

Julie Chrisley, 51, is challengin­g the $17.2 million restitutio­n that she and her husband were ordered to pay and a related $17.2 million forfeiture ruling allowing prosecutor­s to take their property.

Prosecutor­s said the $36 million in bank loans that the Chrisleys fraudulent­ly obtained over several years contribute­d to the downfall of three Atlanta banks — Alpha Bank & Trust, Haven Trust Bank and Integrity Bank. The couple falsely claimed that Todd Chrisley had $4 million in a Merrill Lynch account, among other things, and targeted community banks that tended not to undertake the due diligence of larger banks, records show.

Peter Tarantino, the Chrisleys’ former accountant who was prosecuted alongside them, is also appealing his conviction­s. Tarantino wants a new trial on his three tax evasion-related charges, for which he was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $35,000.

The trio were sentenced in September 2022. The Chrisleys began their prison sentences in January 2023. Todd Chrisley is in a minimum security prison in Pensacola, Florida, while Julie Chrisley is at a prison facility in Lexington, Kentucky. Tarantino, 61, started serving his sentence at the federal prison in Montgomery, Alabama, in June 2023.

 ?? THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTI­ON ?? Todd Chrisley outside the federal trial court in Atlanta in 2022. He was found liable in a civil slander case brought against him by a Georgia Department of Revenue investigat­or, who was awarded $755,000 by a jury.
THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTI­ON Todd Chrisley outside the federal trial court in Atlanta in 2022. He was found liable in a civil slander case brought against him by a Georgia Department of Revenue investigat­or, who was awarded $755,000 by a jury.

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