Todd Chrisley is ordered to pay back Ga investigator $755,000 in defamation lawsuit decline

Imprisoned truth Tv star Todd Chrisley is going through even more lawful and money woes.

Past 7 days, a federal jury located that the authentic estate tycoon, recognised for the United states Community series “Chrisley Is aware of Greatest,” defamed an investigator from the Georgia Division of Profits. A Ga choose determined Thursday that Chrisley, who is at the moment serving a years-prolonged sentence in federal prison for financial institution fraud and tax evasion, have to pay back Amy Doherty-Heinze $755,000 in compensatory and punitive damages and lawful charges, according to legal files reviewed by The Occasions.

Doherty-Heinze sued Chrisley on July 9, 2021, alleging he accused her of “a multitude of crimes and wrongdoing” beginning in 2020, legal paperwork say. The defamation match also alleged Chrisley, 55, “repeated false accusations that, between other factors, [Doherty-Heinze] engaged in several felony misconduct in her article as an investigator for the Georgia Division of Revenue’s Place of work of Specific Investigations.” Two months soon after the lawsuit arrived down, Chrisley tried using to get the circumstance thrown out, but Doherty-Heinze alleged that the Tv set star ongoing to “defame” her in a September 2021 episode of his and wife Julie’s “Chrisley Confessions” podcast.

According to the investigator’s accommodate, Chrisley names Doherty-Heinze in his podcast and accuses her of corruption and of “illegally accessing” a govt program to pull info on the truth Television set relatives, which includes his wife and their children, Chase and Savannah.

Doherty-Heinze submitted her lawsuit 4 many years immediately after the Ga Office of Earnings started investigating Todd and Julie Chrisley in 2017, the lawsuit stated.

Her match alleged that Chrisley commenced a “social media marketing campaign against the GDOR and sure of its staff, contending that the investigation was unlawful and improperly motivated.” Amid the lawsuit, Doherty-Heinze’s attorneys demanded in September 2022 that Chrisley retract the alleged defamatory statements from the September 2021 podcast episode.

In response to Thursday’s ruling, Chrisley’s lawyer Leesa Guarnotta reported in a assertion to The Occasions the star’s workforce was “pleased the jury identified that some of Mr. Chrisley’s statements were being not defamatory and awarded the plaintiff a fourth of the damages she asked for.”

“We are involved about the state of the Initial Modification the place these types of a situation could make it to demo in the initial area,” the assertion additional. “We are optimistic about our appeal.”

A authorized agent for Doherty-Heinze did not instantly answer to The Times’ ask for for comment.

The “Chrisley Appreciates Best” patriarch and Julie Chrisley ended up convicted in June 2022 of federal expenses together with tax evasion and bank fraud, disrupting their actuality Television set empire and relatives dynamics. The spouses commenced their prison sentences in January 2023.

Todd Chrisley was sentenced to 12 several years in Florida’s Federal Jail Camp Pensacola and Julie 7 a long time at Kentucky’s Federal Professional medical Center in Lexington. Previous calendar year, both equally received slight reductions in their sentences: Todd is established to be launched two years earlier than at first scheduled, and Julie 14 months.

Situations researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.