Todd and Julie Chrisley may be denying any part in their recent tax evasion problems, but the beloved reality television couple could face time in prison anyway. The Chrisley Knows Best couple was indicted Tuesday on 11 counts of bank fraud and tax evasion. The maximum sentence for such crime is 30 years behind bars if they are convicted.
According to documents obtained by The Blast, Todd and Julie set up a production company, called 7C’s Productions, which served as a loan-out company for all the money made through their USA Network show, Chrisley Knows Best.
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The papers claim millions of dollars were deposited into the production company account over the years. The outlet also wrote the couple did not file tax returns in time for 2014, 2015 or 2016.
Todd seemingly saw the controversy coming and took to Instagram Monday night to release a lengthy statement denying the couple’s involvement and blaming a disgruntled former employee for the situation.
“I’ve never talked about this publicly before, but there’s been a cloud hanging over Julie and me and our entire family for the past seven years. It all started back in 2012, when we discovered that a trusted employee of ours had been stealing from us big time,” he began the lengthy post.
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Adding he wouldn’t go into specifics, Todd claimed the ex-employee’s crimes “involved all kinds of really bad stuff like creating phony documents, forging our signatures, and threatening other employees with violence if they said anything.”
“We even discovered that he illegally bugged our home,” Todd continued. “Needless to say, we fired the guy and took him to court — and that’s when the real trouble started. To get revenge, he took a bunch of his phony documents to the U.S. Attorney’s office and told them we had committed all kinds of financial crimes, like tax evasion and bank fraud. That got their attention all right, but once we had a chance to explain who he was and what he’d done to us, they realized it was all a bunch of nonsense and they sent him on his way.”
“So far so good — except that our former employee didn’t give up. Somehow, he persuaded a different set of investigators at the U.S. Attorney’s office not only to reopen the case but also to grant him immunity from prosecution for his own crimes and bring charges against us,” he claimed.
“As a result, it looks like later this week Julie and I are going to be named in a federal indictment charging us with tax evasion and probably a bunch of other financial crimes as well,” he said.
He added, “We know we’ve done nothing wrong… I’m telling you all this now because we have nothing to hide and have done nothing to be ashamed of. Not only do we know we’ve done nothing wrong, but we’ve got a ton of hard evidence and a bunch of corroborating witnesses that proves it.”
Despite the scandal, it seems to be business as usual in the Chrisley household, as Todd took to Instagram shortly after the indictment news broke to promote Tuesday night’s episode of Growing Up Chrisley.
