Teresa and her ex-husband, Joe Giudice, previously served time in prison for tax fraud.
Teresa Giudice is offering some words of wisdom for fellow reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley -- following their sentencing for tax fraud. During a conversation with TMZ, the Real Housewives of New Jersey star -- who served time following a tax fraud conviction in 2014, shared that it’s all about staying connected with their family.
"Stand strong,” Teresa said when asked the best thing the Chrisleys can do while serving their time. "Standing strong for their family and manifest, while being in prison, what they want when they come out and just to be strong for their children."
Todd, 53, and Julie, 49, are parents of Savannah, Chase, Grayson, and their granddaughter, Chloe. In addition, Todd has two older children, Lindsie and Kyle from a previous relationship.
In November, the patriarch and matriarch of the Chrisley family were sentenced to 12 years and 16-months' probation, and seven years, and 16-months' probation, respectively, after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and tax fraud in June. They are both scheduled to report to prison in January.
According to the Standing Strong author, being connected to their children is going to be one of the most important parts of their sentencing.
"It’s gonna be very hard, but they have to make the best of it and they have to stand strong for their family and stay connected to their children and make it work," she added.
Teresa noted that because her four children were younger, they were able to visit her in prison once a week. However, she understands that may be hard for Todd and Julie.
"The thing is, my children were young," she told TMZ. "Based on their schedules at least go once a month. Always keep connected, keep the family connected, stand strong together.”
According to the reality TV star, another way their time will go by is finding activities. Teresa said that she turned to yoga, exercise and manifesting during her almost year-long stay in prison.
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, before being released to ICE custody and being returned to his homeland of Italy.
Earlier this month, Joe chimed in on the Chrisley’s case while appearing on Teresa and Melissa Pfeister’s Namaste B$tches podcast. The businessman spoke of the parallels between their situations and shared how him and Teresa taking plea deals worked in their favor.
"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," Joe said.
"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," Joe continued. "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."
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