“The Chrisleys have constructed an empire based mostly on the lie that their wealth got here from dedication and laborious work,” prosecutors mentioned. “The jury’s unanimous verdict units the file straight: Todd and Julie Chrisley are profession swindlers who’ve made a residing by leaping from one fraud scheme to a different, mendacity to banks, stiffing distributors and evading taxes at each nook.”
With the assistance of a former enterprise accomplice, the Chrisleys used faux financial institution statements, audit studies and private monetary statements to defraud banks within the Atlanta space to get greater than $36 million in private loans, in response to the Justice Division. The couple used that cash to purchase luxurious vehicles, actual property and different lavish items. After they spent all the cash, Mr. Chrisley filed for chapter, the Justice Division mentioned.
Then, after incomes hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from their actuality TV present, the couple conspired to defraud the Inside Income Service with the assistance of their accountant, Peter Tarantino, 60, prosecutors mentioned. To keep away from paying about $500,000 in delinquent taxes owed by Mr. Chrisley, the couple opened company financial institution accounts in Ms. Chrisley’s identify, in response to the Justice Division. However when the I.R.S. requested for details about the accounts in Ms. Chrisley’s identify, the couple modified possession of their company checking account to a different member of the family to cover their revenue from the I.R.S., the Justice Division mentioned.
(Later, after studying concerning the grand jury investigation, Ms. Chrisley filed a false doc to a grand jury subpoena to make it look as if the couple had not lied to the financial institution once they moved the possession of the company account to a relative, the Justice Division mentioned.)
The couple didn’t file or pay taxes in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, and, as a part of the scheme, Mr. Tarantino filed two company tax returns for the loan-out firm that falsely claimed that the corporate didn’t earn cash or make distributions in 2015 and 2016, in response to the Justice Division.
Together with sentencing the Chrisleys on Monday, Decide Ross sentenced Mr. Tarantino to a few years in jail and three years of probation; he was convicted in June of submitting false company tax returns for the Chrisleys’ firm.
Ryan Ok. Buchanan, the U.S. lawyer for the Northern District of Georgia, mentioned in a press release that the size of the Chrisleys’ sentences mirrored “the magnitude of their prison scheme,” including that they “ought to function a warning to others tempted to use our nation’s group banking system for illegal private achieve.”