ATLANTA — For the first time in over a year, we are hearing from Julie Chrisley about her experience of being in jail following the fraud conviction of her and her husband, Todd.
The couple, mostly known for their reality TV series “Chrisley Knows Best,” were found guilty in 2022 of conspiring to defraud banks and the IRS out of millions of dollars.
During a recent episode of her podcast, the couple’s daughter Savannah Chrisley shared letters written by her mother from behind bars talking about being separated from her husband and children.
“I knew my life was about to change forever. My husband and I stood in our bedroom right in front of our prayer bench and said our goodbyes. We hugged, we kissed and we prayed before he walked out the door heading to Pensacola, Florida with Savannah, Grayson and Nick,” she wrote in her first letter after reporting to prison in January 2023, People Magazine reported.
The Chrisleys are serving a combined 15 years in prison. They were originally sentenced to 19 years, but the sentences were reduced in September 2023.
In that same letter, Julie wrote “This would be the last time I would speak to my husband face to face. We talked on the phone during his ride to Pensacola, I called one last time before I self-surrendered to the camp in Lexington.”
In another note shared by their daughter, Julie Chrisley said she was happy she was able to at least communicate with them by letter.
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“I miss Todd so much that it hurts. I’ve never gone this long without talking to him,” Julie Chrisley wrote.
Savannah Chrisley called the letters “heartbreaking.”
“I can just feel her hurt through these messages and to just think about how different life is now, a year, almost a year and a half later, and to just think that like, sure, there’s some funny things in here, mom’s trying to make jokes, trying to make light of it, but like this is her life now. And it’s so different than obviously what it was before, in just the emotional aspect of it of having to miss your family so much,” Savannah Chrisley said.
In yet another letter, Julie Chrisley said she was still longing to see her husband.
“It was great seeing the kids and Mom and Dad this week, but I miss Todd so bad,” she wrote. “I miss his voice. I miss being able to lay in bed beside each other. I miss my person. I called Chase in the middle of the afternoon and gosh, I worry about my kids so much. I only talked to him for a minute and then followed it up with an email.”
Last month, Julie Chrisley’s attorney said he hoped that her sentence could be reduced even further and that she might be able to get out on bond as the couple continues to appeal their sentence.
Attorney Alex Little said he feels that the First Step Act could be applied in Julie’s case. The act “is a criminal justice reform bill that promotes the rehabilitation of convicted individuals and reduces excessive sentence,” People reported.
“We don’t know whether the judge would actually apply it in a way to reduce her sentence,” Little said. “We think it should if the judge would have followed the guidelines. And that could happen, you know, this year, early next year.”
Channel 2 Action News first started investigating the Chrisleys in 2017, when we learned that Todd Chrisley had likely evaded paying Georgia state income taxes for several years.
Court documents obtained by Channel 2 Action News showed that by 2018, the Chrisleys owed the state nearly $800,000 in liens.
The couple eventually went to trial and a federal jury found them guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion in June 2022.
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