Todd Chrisley, the disgraced reality TV star who is currently incarcerated for bank fraud and tax evasion, has been hit with fresh legal and financial issues, reports said.
The 54-year-old Atlanta-based businessman and television personality, best known for appearing on the USA Network reality show “Chrisley Knows Best,” has been ordered to pay $755,000 to a former Georgia Department of Revenue investigator for making defamatory statements against her.
A Georgia judge on Thursday found Chrisley liable for two claims of libel and slander against Amy Doherty-Heinze, according to multiple reports.
According to documents obtained by The Los Angeles Times and People, Doherty-Heinze was awarded $350,000 in compensatory damages, $170,000 in punitive damages, and $235,000 in attorney fees from Chrisley.
Chrisley, who is 15 months into his 12-year sentence, testified remotely from FPC Pensacola during the trial.
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According to the investigator’s suit, Chrisley shared several defamatory statements about Doherty-Heinze on his podcast and social media accounts after the Georgia Department of Revenue began their investigation into him and his wife, Julie Chrisley, in 2017.
On a 2020 episode of the couple’s now-defunct weekly podcast, “Chrisley Confessions,” the real estate mogul accused Doherty-Heinze of corruption and of “illegally accessing” a government program to pull information on his wife and children, the lawsuit said.
The plaintiff initially asked Chrisley to retract his defamatory statements, which he declined. She filed her lawsuit the following year in July 2021, alleging that Chrisley had accused her of “a multitude of crimes and wrongdoing,” per legal documents.
Doherty-Heinze said that Chrisley “repeated false accusations” about her “criminal misconduct in her post as an investigator for the Georgia Department of Revenue’s Office of Special Investigations.”
According to the law suit, Chrisley continued to “defame” Doherty-Heinze in a September 2021 episode of their podcast after he attempted to have the case thrown out.
At the weeklong trial, which concluded on Thursday, an eight-person jury found Chrisley liable for the two claims of libel and slander made in 2020 and 2021 but not liable for a third claim of slander made in a 2022 podcast episode as they didn’t believe he acted with “malice” on that occasion.
In response to the ruling, Chrisley’s attorney, Leesa Guarnotta, said in a statement to USA Today: “Although we are pleased the jury recognized that not all of Mr. Chrisley’s statements were defamatory and awarded the plaintiff a fourth of the damages she requested, we are concerned about the state of the First Amendment where such a case could make it to trial in the first place.”
USA Network
According to his lawyer, Chrisley will be filing an appeal, and he is “optimistic” about its outcome.
Chrisley was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in 2022 after he and his wife were found guilty of defrauding banks out of more than $30 million by providing fake financial statements, giving the appearance they were wealthier than they were.
Meanwhile, His wife was handed a seven-year sentence. They are serving their sentences at two separate facilities in Florida and Kentucky.
As Business Insider reported in September, the pair have already had time shaved off their sentences.
According to federal prison records, Chrisley is scheduled to be released on October 9, 2032. Meanwhile, Julie’s release has been moved to July 6, 2028.
