Chrisley Knows Best alum Julie Chrisley might end up out of prison earlier than expected after an appeals court threw out her sentence and ordered a new sentencing for the reality star.
In its ruling on Friday, June 21, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the bank fraud convictions of Julie; Chrisley Knows Best costar Todd Chrisley, Julie’s husband; and Peter Tarantino, the couple’s accountant. But the judges found insufficient evidence that Julie was involved when the scheme began in 2006, People reports.
“The problem is that we have not located the evidence the district court relied on in adopting that finding,” the judges wrote, per People. “Our review of the record hasn’t revealed evidence to show, even by a preponderance of the evidence, that [Julie] was involved in 2006. Indeed, the government’s brief concedes that the evidence shows Julie ‘participated in the bank fraud conspiracy from 2007,’ not 2006.”
The judges also sent the case to a lower court for resentencing.
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Alex Little, an attorney for Todd and Julie, told People they’re “pleased that the Court agreed that Julie’s sentence was improper” but “obviously disappointed that it rejected Todd’s appeal.” Little will “now challenge the couple’s convictions based on the illegal search that started the case,” he said.
And in an Instagram reel, daughter Savannah Chrisley called the ruling “a little win” for the family.
In June 2022, a jury found Todd and Julie guilty of conspiring to defraud banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans, as well as tax evasion and conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, while Julie was convicted of wire fraud and obstruction of justice as well, The Associated Press reported at the time.
That November, Todd was sentenced to 12 years in prison and 16 months of probation, and Julie was sentenced to seven years in prison and 16 months of probation, per People, but Todd later had his sentence reduced by almost two years and Julie had hers reduced by 14 months, as the magazine reported in September 2023.