CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Former Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill says his federal trial isn’t unlike the one that reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley faced, even with the same judge.
During this week’s episode of Savannah Chrisley’s podcast, she and the former sheriff compared their cases and found several similarities.
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“What happened to your family is actually what happened to me twice,” he said. “The first time it happened, I was running to take the seat back again and was indicted on a 37-count RICO charge.”
Hill is referencing a 2012 indictment that alleged he used county cars for getaways and county credit cards for shopping sprees.
“Twenty-seven of them alleged that I drove my assigned police car out of town, and they said that every time I put gas in it, that was a RICO charge. So they made it a felony, and they said that by doing this, I was running a criminal organization,” Hill said on the podcast.
But he says that his treatment during the trial was similar to what the Chrisley family experienced during their federal trial.
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Both he and Savannah Chrisley say Judge Eleanor Ross recused a juror at the last minute. Savannah Chrisley says in her parents’ case, the judge claimed a juror had a hard time staying awake, but the juror said the TV screens showing evidence were on the ground in front of her.
Julie Chrisley’s sentence was vacated in June but Todd’s was upheld and she is currently serving 12 years in a federal prison in Florida.
She was resentenced in September, but the judge did not remove any of the time from her sentence.
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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.
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