Todd Chrisley, the disgraced actuality TV star who’s at the moment incarcerated for financial institution fraud and tax evasion, has been hit with contemporary authorized and monetary points, studies mentioned.
The 54-year-old Atlanta-based businessman and tv character, greatest identified for showing on the USA Community actuality present “Chrisley Is aware of Finest,” has been ordered to pay $755,000 to a former Georgia Division of Income investigator for making defamatory statements towards her.
A Georgia choose on Thursday discovered Chrisley liable for 2 claims of libel and slander towards Amy Doherty-Heinze, based on a number of studies.
Based on paperwork obtained by The Los Angeles Instances and Individuals, Doherty-Heinze was awarded $350,000 in compensatory damages, $170,000 in punitive damages, and $235,000 in lawyer charges from Chrisley.
Chrisley, who’s 15 months into his 12-year sentence, testified remotely from FPC Pensacola through the trial.
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Based on the investigator’s swimsuit, Chrisley shared a number of defamatory statements about Doherty-Heinze on his podcast and social media accounts after the Georgia Division of Income started their investigation into him and his spouse, Julie Chrisley, in 2017.
On a 2020 episode of the couple’s now-defunct weekly podcast, “Chrisley Confessions,” the true property mogul accused Doherty-Heinze of corruption and of “illegally accessing” a authorities program to drag data on his spouse and youngsters, the lawsuit mentioned.
The plaintiff initially requested Chrisley to retract his defamatory statements, which he declined. She filed her lawsuit the next yr in July 2021, alleging that Chrisley had accused her of “a large number of crimes and wrongdoing,” per authorized paperwork.
Doherty-Heinze mentioned that Chrisley “repeated false accusations” about her “prison misconduct in her put up as an investigator for the Georgia Division of Income’s Workplace of Particular Investigations.”
Based on the regulation swimsuit, Chrisley continued to “defame” Doherty-Heinze in a September 2021 episode of their podcast after he tried to have the case thrown out.
On the weeklong trial, which concluded on Thursday, an eight-person jury discovered Chrisley responsible for the 2 claims of libel and slander made in 2020 and 2021 however not responsible for a 3rd declare of slander made in a 2022 podcast episode as they did not consider he acted with “malice” on that event.
In response to the ruling, Chrisley’s lawyer, Leesa Guarnotta, mentioned in an announcement to USA Immediately: “Though we’re happy the jury acknowledged that not all of Mr. Chrisley’s statements had been defamatory and awarded the plaintiff a fourth of the damages she requested, we’re involved in regards to the state of the First Modification the place such a case may make it to trial within the first place.”
USA Community
Based on his lawyer, Chrisley might be submitting an attraction, and he’s “optimistic” about its final result.
Chrisley was sentenced to 12 years in federal jail in 2022 after he and his spouse had been discovered responsible of defrauding banks out of greater than $30 million by offering faux monetary statements, giving the looks they had been wealthier than they had been.
In the meantime, His spouse was handed a seven-year sentence. They’re serving their sentences at two separate amenities in Florida and Kentucky.
As Enterprise Insider reported in September, the pair have already had time shaved off their sentences.
Based on federal jail data, Chrisley is scheduled to be launched on October 9, 2032. In the meantime, Julie’s launch has been moved to July 6, 2028.
