Todd Chrisley has already proclaimed his innocence on social media. And now the embattled reality star has done so in a court of law. Earlier this week, the very rich USA Network personality was indicted , along with wife Julie, on multiple charges; foremost among them: Wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Todd and Julie are accused of forging bank documents and not paying federal taxes over a period of multiple years. If convicted across the board, they could face 30 years in prison . On Wednesday afternoon, the reality stars pleaded not guilty to these tax evasion and other federal charges — and their lawyers claimed the counts stemmed from false allegations made by a former employee. This is the same allegation Todd wrote about in his lengthy self-defense on Monday. “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,” Todd said via Instagram this week, adding: “It all started back in 2012, when we discovered that a trusted employee of ours had been stealing from us big time… “I’m telling you all this because we have nothing to hide and have done nothing to be ashamed of. Not only do we know we’ve 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 prove it.” During the aforementioned hearing yesterday, a judge agreed to release the famous couple on a $100,000 unsecured bond , which means they don’t have to pay anything unless they fail to show up for court dates. Todd and Julie were also required to surrender their passports and are not allowed to travel outside of parts of Georgia and Tennessee without alerting their probation officers of their plans. According to the Associated Press, the bond conditions mentioned above were based on requests from the couple’s attorneys for travel permission so the family members can continue filming the reality television show . This would seem to contradict reports that USA will not be bringing Chrisley Knows Best back for another season. It has already aired for seven seasons and even spawned a spinoff for two of Todd and Julie’s kids. One of those kids, Savannah, is standing strongly behind her parents. ” ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged … the battle is not yours, but God’s. 2 Chronicles 20:15,’” the 22-year old wrote yesterday on her Instagram Story. Elsewhere, however, a U.S. Attorney has said the following: Todd and Julie Chrisley are charged not only with defrauding a number of banks by fraudulently obtaining millions of dollars in loans, but also with allegedly cheating taxpayers by actively evading paying federal taxes on the money they earned. Celebrities face the same justice that everyone does. These are serious federal charges and they will have their day in court. On the other legal side, the Chrisley lawyers ( Bruce H. Morris and Stephen Friedberg) have defended their well-known clients with a long statement of their own. This is what it says: For quite some time now, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia has been conducting an investigation of Todd and Julie Chrisley based for the most part on the demonstrably false allegations of a former officer of a company they owned jointly. We saw the results of this effort yesterday – an indictment against Todd, Julie, and their accountant that relies largely if not entirely on emails that we know Todd never sent but rather were fabricated by this former employee. This individual, identified in the indictment only as ‘Co-conspirator A,’ first approached federal authorities in 2012, claiming he had evidence that Todd had been trying to avoid paying his taxes. What the authorities didn’t know, at least initially, was that he had been fired by the Chrisleys after they discovered he had been falsifying documents, forging their signatures, bugging their home, and intimidating other employees into covering up what amounted to a multi-million-dollar embezzlement scheme. These and many other criminal misdeeds were detailed in a federal RICO suit that the Chrisleys filed against him in 2012. Ironically, it was this lawsuit that sent him to the U.S. Attorney’s office. He wasn’t looking for justice but for revenge and his “evidence” against Todd consisted mainly of falsified document Now, seven years later, the government has granted this individual immunity from prosecution for his own crimes and used his false allegations to bring an indictment against the Chrisley. We have no doubt that if this case ever reaches a courtroom, Todd and Julie will be completely exonerated. But in the meantime, their reputation will be sullied by a shamefully unjustified prosecution based on testimony of a dishonest source who has somehow managed to successfully mislead prosecutors. View Slideshow: 17 Truly Shocking Reality TV Scandals
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Todd Chrisley Pleads Not Guilty in Court; What’s Next?
