Todd and Julie Chrisley are now placing the blame for their own incarceration on their lawyers!
According to NBC News on Tuesday, the reality stars sued their former defense attorneys for a whopping $25 million, claiming a huge mistake the team made during the fraud case caused their conviction and imprisonment! As previously reported, the Justice Department during the first Trump administration accused Todd and Julie in 2019 of defrauding banks of more than $36 million and using the ill-gotten money to support their lavish lifestyle before they became famous reality stars in 2014.
Three years later, a jury found them guilty of wire fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Todd was sentenced to 12 years in prison, while Julie was sentenced to only seven years. However, they both got out early! President Donald Trump pardoned the Chrisley Knows Best alums last year — despite several judges agreeing the television personalities should be locked up for their alleged crimes! We assume the support he received amid his presidential campaign from their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, who pushed for their release, really won him over rather than the experts…
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They have been out of prison for over a year now, but you won’t find them keeping their heads down and moving on with their lives after the legal mess! Nope, they are looking to get revenge by suing their defense team!
In a new lawsuit filed on Monday, Todd and Chrisley claimed their former attorney, Christopher Anulewicz, and the law firm Balch & Bingham were not capable of defending them in “one of the most consequential federal criminal prosecutions in the country.” They alleged Anulewicz “had no meaningful criminal defense experience” and only took the case because it represented “publicity, and the kind of high-profile notoriety that brings in business.”
For what it is worth, a biography from his current firm states that Anulewicz has nearly 30 years of experience in civil and white collar criminal business cases. He was also listed in “The Best Lawyers in America” in 2021 and listed among Georgia’s “Super Lawyers” from 2014 to 2026. So it sounds like he does have experience with cases like Todd and Julie’s!
The lawsuit specifically mentions a search conducted by the Georgia Department of Revenue on the pair’s warehouse in 2017. Todd and Julie claim the search was “illegal” and Anulewicz waited too long to file a motion to “suppress the derivative evidence” found, leading to “catastrophic” consequences. Per TMZ, their attorneys got some of the material thrown out, but the team never went after any of the emails, bank records, and other evidence the investigators found in the search.
Sooo what it sounds like is that Todd and Julie are mad they got caught because of this alleged screwup? Got it. The lawsuit continued:
“They served time in federal prison. They were separated from each other and from their children. They lost their television show and endorsement deals, costing them more than $25 million in income. Their reputations were destroyed. A lawyer with actual criminal defense competence, supervised by a firm that took its professional obligations seriously, would never have let this happen.”
Todd and Julie are asking for $25 million in compensation, as well as compensation for their attorneys’ fees. A lawyer for Anulewicz, Patrick O’Connor, however, claimed to NBC News that his client hasn’t been served with the lawsuit as of Monday afternoon:
“We are unable to comment on an unserved, apparently pending federal lawsuit.”
That may or may not have changed by now, but his attorney hasn’t issued a new statement. Meanwhile, Doug Schneider, a spokesperson for Balch & Bingham, said in a statement that “this complaint will be vigorously defended; however, we are not in a position to comment further on a pending lawsuit.”
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[Image via Chrisley Confessions/YouTube]
