ATLANTA — Just days after her father’s conviction was upheld by a federal appeals court, Savannah Chrisley is once again speaking out about the conditions that she says her father is living in while in prison.
Todd Chrisley is currently serving 12 years in federal prison in Pensacola, Florida following his 2023 fraud conviction. His wife Julie, who was also convicted at the time, had her sentence vacated on Friday and is supposed to be resentenced.
On Monday night, Savannah Chrisley spoke out once again about the retaliation she said her father is facing for talking about the conditions he has been living in since his incarceration.
“The retaliation has gotten extremely worse,” Savannah said during an interview on NewsNation’s CUOMO. “They’re trying to they’re retaliating against friends of his just in hopes that they would turn on my father for some odd reason.”
Savannah said she’s not just hearing from her father about what’s going on in the jail.
“I get letters every day. I got a letter from a veteran that talks about the extreme abuse that he endured a FPC Pensacola as well as sexual abuse that has been endured. So, it’s heartbreaking to me that this was going on,” Savannah said.
Savannah said if it wasn’t for her fighting for her parents, then Friday’s ruling probably never would have come to fruition.
“If I wasn’t out here fighting for my parents, this opinion that we got from the appeals court would not have happened,” Savannah said. “Now, I have a chance at getting my parents home.”
She also said she isn’t just doing this for them.
“I don’t just do this for my parents. I do this for all the other men and women that are currently incarcerated that can’t fight for themselves,” Savannah said. “I know these people don’t have the money, the resources, the knowledge to fight.”
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While Savannah sees this as a chance to get her mother back home, legal experts told Channel 2 Action News that Julie Chrisley could end up with the same exact sentence.
“The judge could look at it and say, ‘Yeah, I was wrong. The amount of money should be less, so your sentence should be less.’ But she also, he could look at it and say, I saw three weeks of trial. I think I got the sentence exactly right, and reimpose the exact same sentence,” said Brian Mendelsohn, with the Mendelsohn Ertel Law Group.
Mendelsohn said he can’t predict which way it will go for Julie Chrisley, but resentencing cases like this usually favors the defense.
“It’s always a good thing for criminal defense or for a criminal client to go back for re-sentencing. They often come out better, they will not come out worse,” he said.
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.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals says Julie Chrisley should be resentenced. There is no word yet on when that will happen.
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