Todd and Julie Chrisley have something to celebrate, even while still behind bars. The former reality stars, who are currently serving time for fraud and tax evasion, received a $1 million settlement from the state of Georgia.
The couple had filed a lawsuit against Joshua Waites, the former Director of Special Investigations of the state’s Department of Revenue, in 2019, alleging that he had committed misconduct in connection with his investigation of the Chrisleys.
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“We have been saying for months that the criminal case against the Chrisleys was highly unusual and had real problems,” the family’s attorney, Alex Little of Burr & Forman LLP, said in a statement. “This settlement is an encouraging sign.”
The statement continued, “It’s nearly unprecedented for one arm of the government to pay money to defendants when another arm is fighting to keep them in jail.”
The Chrisleys were cleared of a $2 million state tax evasion case in Georgia in 2019, and subsequently filed a lawsuit against Waites claiming he “specifically targeting” their family.
Reps for the State of Georgia Dept. of Revenue did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.
Despite beating the state charges, the couple were later indicted by a federal grand jury for 12 counts of bank and wire fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy, all of which they have denied. The stars of Chrisley Knows Best were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans, as well as several other federal charges of tax evasion, in June 2022.
They were originally sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison but last September Todd’s sentence was reduced to about 10 years, from 12, while Julie’s was reduced to about five years, from seven.
The Chrisleys are best known for their reality show, which followed real estate tycoon Todd Chrisley and his wealthy family for 10 seasons on the USA Network. The show was cancelled upon Todd and Julie Chrisley’s sentencing in November 2022, along with the spinoff series Growing Up Chrisely, centered around their children Chase and Savannah.
According to the Chriselys’ lawyer, their appeal of their criminal convictions will be heard by the federal appeals court in Atlanta in April.
