Todd and Julie Chrisley have been sentenced to 12 and 7 years in prison.
Joe Giudice is weighing in on Todd and Julie Chrisley's tax fraud case.
Joe appeared on this week's episode of his ex-wife, Teresa, and Melissa Pfeister’s Namaste B$tches podcast, where he reflected on the parallels between his and Teresa's past legal troubles amid the Chrisleys' recent prison sentencing, which saw Todd, 53, sentenced to 12 years and 16-months' probation, and Julie, 49, sentenced to seven years and 16 months' probation, after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and tax fraud in June.
"I mean, these people did the same, exact thing we did, that I did -- not Teresa, me. It was probably, I say, 90 percent of the world does, the U.S. does -- did -- during the times, but they targeted us, and now these people here did the same exact thing, same exact charges. But they got -- they would've probably got a slap on the wrist, they would've gone to prison, maybe the wife would've gone to prison same [amount of] time as Teresa, if that. And the guy would've probably got the same amount I got, which he would've been out in, you know, 17 months, 'cause he could've done the drug program and he's a citizen and this and that, so he would've been out 16 months, 17 months," Joe explained, referencing his and Teresa's prison sentences. "But being that he went to trial, OK? They crucified him, all right? They give you double time."
Joe and his Teresa both pleaded guilty to multiple charges of fraud in 2014, and were given consecutive sentences, with the mother of four -- who was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison -- serving her time first. She entered prison in January 2015, but was released early in December that same year.
Joe, meanwhile, was released from prison in March 2019 after completing his 41-month prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix, New Jersey. Joe, a citizen of Italy, was later transferred to custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before his release in October of that same year. Not long after he returned back to his homeland, he and Teresa ultimately decided to go their separate ways just two months later.
Touching further on the Chrisleys' sentencing and their own, Joe said he and his ex-wife ultimately did the "right thing" by taking plea deals in their fraud case.
"I'm assuming they probably gave him a plea deal for, like, 48 months, something like that. Something like I got, all right? So, you get 36 months out of that, on good time and all that, and then if you get the drug programs, alcohol programs, and all that, you get even less time. So, you do maybe 15 months, you know, 14 months, something like that," he continued. "But if he would have taken the plea, which you can't go to trial against the feds. You can't do it. You gonna lose. You have a better chance going to trial against state, and even state is tough, you know what I mean? Civil's another program, you know what I mean? So, it's, it's tough. We did the right thing. We took the plea, we licked our wounds and did what we had to do and moved on."
The Chrisleys are still grappling with last month's prison sentencing, which came after the couple was found guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and tax fraud back in June. Todd and Julie were originally scheduled to receive their sentencing on Oct. 6. The shift came after the couple motioned for a new trial and acquittal in August, claiming that their initial trial was "fundamentally unfair."
In that legal filing, Todd and Julie argued that an IRS Revenue officer "lied" in her testimony about the Chrisleys owing taxes "when she knew no taxes were due." They claimed that those statements had the effect of "falsely painting the Chrisleys as untruthful, likely to commit other forms of fraud, and evading the tax payments alleged in the indictment."
They also accused the court of admitting "substantial volumes of evidence at trial which were obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment," citing financial documents they say were "unlawfully seized" by Georgia's Department of Revenue and initially suppressed by the court. The filing went on to accuse the court of failing to "properly enforce its suppression order" by allowing some of said documentation to be admitted into evidence.
Additionally, in their request for an acquittal, documents claimed there was no evidence that Julie "participated in any of the specifically alleged bank frauds." It also claimed that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that Todd and Julie were involved in bank fraud, wire fraud, tax evasion or conspiracy to defraud the United States.
The trial and subsequent conviction came after Todd and Julie were indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2019 for falsifying documents to secure up to $30 million in bank loans for personal use. Todd and Julie turned themselves in shortly thereafter, denying wrongdoing and entering a plea of not guilty.
For more on the Chrisleys' legal troubles, check out the video below.
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