President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed pardons for reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, who have been serving federal prison sentences since being convicted three years ago of bank fraud and tax evasion.
Trump’s pardons pave the way for the couple best known for the TV series “Chrisley Knows Best” to be freed from prison. Todd Chrisley, 57, has been incarcerated at a minimum security prison camp in Pensacola, Florida. Julie Chrisley, 52, was imprisoned at a facility in Lexington, Kentucky.
The Chrisleys’ TV show portrayed them as a tight-knit family with an extravagant lifestyle. Prosecutors at the couple’s 2022 trial said the couple spent lavishly on high-priced cars, designer clothes, real estate and travel after taking out fraudulent bank loans worth millions of dollars and hiding their earnings from tax authorities.
Trump announced his intention to pardon the Chrisleys on Tuesday, saying the celebrity couple had been “given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I’m hearing.” It was another example of the president, himself a former reality TV star, pardoning high-profile friends, supporters, donors and former staffers.
Savannah Chrisley, the couple’s daughter, has been a vocal Trump supporter and endorsed his candidacy in a speech at the Republican National Convention last summer. Though she has complained the case against her parents was politically motivated, they were indicted in 2019 under a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, Byung J. “BJay” Pak.
Savannah Chrisley used a social media post Wednesday to praise U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, the Justice Department lawyer assigned to advise Trump on pardons and commutations.
“Your leadership is already changing countless lives — including mine,” Savannah Chrisley posted on X. “Thank you for standing boldly for truth, for justice, and for reuniting families like mine.”
The Chrisleys’ attorney, Alex Little, said Tuesday that Trump’s pardon “corrects a deep injustice” in which the celebrity couple were “targeted because of their conservative values and high profile.”
Before she was pardoned, Julie Chrisley had been scheduled for release in January 2028, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. Todd Chrisley was to remain imprisoned until September 2032.
During the couple’s trial, prosecutors said the Chrisleys hadn’t yet become TV stars when they and a former business partner submitted false documents to banks in the Atlanta area to obtain fraudulent loans. New loans were taken out to pay off the old ones, according to prosecutors, until Todd Chrisley filed for bankruptcy, walking away from more than $20 million in unpaid loans.
The Chrisleys’ defense attorneys had argued that an IRS officer gave false testimony at their trial and that prosecutors lacked evidence to support convictions.
A panel of judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Chrisleys’ convictions last year.
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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.
