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ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley are accusing one of their former defense attorneys of legal malpractice that they say led them to be convicted and imprisoned, separating them from each other and their family, ruining their reputations and costing them millions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Chrisleys were initially indicted in August 2019 and a jury in Atlanta convicted them in June 2022 on charges including bank fraud and tax evasion. Todd Chrisley was sentenced to serve 12 years in federal prison while Julie Chrisley got seven years. Both were released last year after President Donald Trump pardoned them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The lawsuit filed Friday says the law firm, Balch & Bingham, \u201cheld itself out as capable of defending Todd and Julie Chrisley in one of the most consequential federal criminal prosecutions in the country. It was not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The partner who led the Chrisleys’ defense, Chris Anulewicz, \u201chad no meaningful defense experience\u201d and the firm knew that or should have known that, the lawsuit says. But the firm let him lead the case \u201cbecause the Chrisley name meant money, publicity, and the kind of high-profile notoriety that brings in business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Chrisleys are asking for a jury trial and are seeking compensatory damages \u201cin excess of $25 million,\u201d as well as compensation for their legal costs and attorney fees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
While he was supposed to be handling their defense, the lawsuit says, Anulewicz \u201cfound time to steer the Chrisleys into a $75,000 investment in his brother-in-law’s startup food truck business \u2014 exploiting his position as their attorney to benefit himself and his family while neglecting his duty to them.\u201d Anulewicz now works for a different firm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Patrick T. O’Connor, an attorney representing Balch & Bingham and Anulewicz, said Monday that he couldn’t comment because they haven’t been served with the lawsuit yet. But he said \u201cit will be vigorously defended.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Chrisleys, who now live in Tennessee, became famous through their show, \u201cChrisley Knows Best,\u201d which followed their tight-knit family and extravagant lifestyle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Before the Chrisleys became reality television stars, they and a former business partner submitted false documents to banks in the Atlanta area to obtain millions of dollars in fraudulent loans, prosecutors said. They spent lavishly on luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate and travel and used new fraudulent loans to pay old ones. Todd Chrisley then filed for bankruptcy, walking away from more than $20 million in loans, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The federal criminal investigation against the couple was based on an unlawful, warrantless search by the Georgia Department of Revenue of a warehouse where the Chrisleys had stored some belongings, the lawsuit says. The judge granted a defense request to suppress the physical documents from that search.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But Anulewicz didn’t ask her to suppress \u201cderivative evidence,\u201d including emails, bank records and financial documents that \u201cformed the core of the government’s case,\u201d the lawsuit says. Federal agents opened their investigation based on the seized information and then got search warrants to obtain specific documents from the Chrisleys’ email accounts, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWithout that evidence, the government would not have had sufficient evidence to support a conviction,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nhregister.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley are accusing one of their former defense attorneys of legal malpractice that they say led them to be convicted and imprisoned, separating them from each other and their family, ruining their reputations and costing them millions. The Chrisleys were initially indicted in August 2019 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2450387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[314469,481329,22389,154604,345440,313298,481330,397377,345436,345437,396573,345439,338393,481328],"class_list":["post-2450386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-atlanta","tag-chris-anulewicz","tag-donald-trump","tag-julie-chrisley","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-patrick-t-oconnor","tag-product-30041-ap-georgia-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31388-premium-entertainment","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-33328-ap-premium-entertainment-other","tag-todd-chrisley","tag-todd-julie-chrisley-conviction-lawsuit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Chrisleys-sue-former-defense-attorney-alleging-legal-malpractice-in-case.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2450388,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450386\/revisions\/2450388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2450387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}