CELEBRITY
Todd and Julie Chrisley Indicted on Tax Evasion Charges
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Chrisley Knows Best stars Todd and Julie Chrisley have been indicted by a grand jury for tax evasion and other financial charges.
The indictment comes a day after the Chrisley patriarch shared in a lengthy Instagram post he expected to be indicted towards the end of the week, telling fans, “We know we’ve done nothing wrong.”
Todd Chrisley posted the statement alongside a picture of his whole family, alleging a now-former employee set them up.
“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,” Chrisley revealed.
“It all started back in 2012, when we discovered that a trusted employee of ours had been stealing from us big time,” Chrisley shared with his 1.9 million Instagram followers. “I won’t go into details but it involved all kinds of really bad stuff like creating phony documents, forging our signatures and threatening other employees with violence if they said anything.”
Chrisley went on to further reveal the employee even bugged their home.
“Needless to say, we fired the guy and took him to court — and that’s when the real trouble started,” Chrisley maintains. “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.”
While the family thought their troubles were over at this point, according to Chrisley the former employee “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.”
“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,” Chrisley shared with fans via Instagram. “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.”
“We know that if and when this goes to court, the truth will prevail and the charges against us will be exposed for the outrageous lies they are.”
According to People, the couple’s former accountant, Peter Tarrantino, is reportedly facing the same charges.
CNN is reporting the 12-count indictment also alleges the Chrisley’s committed numerous other financial offenses including bank and wire fraud.
