Lindsie Chrisley told an Atlanta federal jury on Thursday that her dad was there to support her when she was getting treatment for an eating disorder in 2008. When her brother, Kyle, was in the throes of addiction between 2009 and 2012, he was there to support him too. “We were trying to get him help.
Looking for him on the street,” Todd Chrisley’s eldest daughter said on the stand of her brother, choking up. During that time — which is the same period Todd Chrisley is accused of bank and tax fraud — his focus was on his children and not his business, she told the court while testifying for the defense. Her father’s top priorities, she said, are “his children and his wife, in that order.
” On cross-examination, however, prosecutors pushed Chrisley’s 32-year-old daughter to talk about a different side to her relationship with her dad — entering emails into evidence that show she reached out to the FBI after her father’s indictment begging for their assistance in getting a restraining order against him. He had been harassing her and threatening to exploit her, she told law enforcement in emails and during a meeting. “I am in no way, shape, or form connected to this monster,” she wrote in 2020.
Federal prosecutors have accused Todd and his wife, Julie Chrisley, who star in the USA Network reality series “Chrisley Knows Best,” of evading taxes and operating a conspiracy to defraud banks by making it appear that they were wealthier than they were . When the banks caught on to them, the Chrisleys filed for bankruptcy, walking away from $20 million in debt. The couple went on to hide money from the IRS, prosecutors say.
Lindsie, who is Todd Chrisley’s daughter from a former marriage, evaded questions by the prosecution about contacting the FBI and was combative in her responses. Her answers became so sarcastic, that members of the jury had outbursts, commenting on her attitude. “You’re not doing anybody any favors by answering questions like that,” Judge Eleanor Ross eventually interrupted.
“Trust me. Trust me. ” Lindsie Chrisley told the jury that she hadn’t talked to her father for about two years before he reached out to her in 2019 and asked her to meet up.
When they met up at a rib shack, she thought he was going to apologize for issues they had, but instead he was just letting her know about the upcoming indictment, she said. About two months later, she told investigators that her father and brother Chase were threatening to release a sex tape. She also went on the Dr.
Phil talk show to talk about the alleged extortion. During her testimony Thursday, Lindsie said doesn’t believe her father was involved in the extortion and has learned there never was a sex tape. “It ruined my life,” she said.
Lindsie Chrisley and her brother Kyle are Todd Chrisley’s children from a former marriage, but when she was 19 she asked her stepmother, Julie, to adopt her, she said. When she was in high school and early college she worked for her father’s company, Chrisley Asset Management, in the office, she said. During that time, her father owned the company with Mark Braddock — the man who admitted to committing bank fraud on Chrisley’s behalf and who ultimately turned him into the FBI.
Lindsie testified that Braddock had a “Napoleon complex” and would use her father’s personal email account and instant messaging account in the office while she was there. She believed that Braddock hated her, and her siblings, and didn’t like when she was in the office. Braddock testified earlier in the trial that he had an intimate relationship with Todd Chrisley.
Defense witnesses — including Lindsie Chrisley — have testified that Braddock was rude, demanding, and belittling at work. When she was around 19 0r 20 she was living in a townhouse owned by her father, with the conditions that she keep her grades up, stay healthy, and not invite over boys. One day, Braddock entered the townhouse uninvited, found Lindsie Chrisley in bed with her boyfriend — who she later married — and took photos of them on his phone.
He told her he took them “for safekeeping,” Lindsie Chrisley said. She was scared at the time that she was going to lose her housing, and didn’t tell her dad. “I would be telling on myself,” she said.
Eventually, she quit CAM when Braddock told her that her father was having an affair with his assistant. Lindsie Chrisley said she believed him at the time. “I wasn’t going to stay around and see it,” she said.
After quitting, she gave back everything that her father owned, changed her number, and tried to make it on her own, she testified. Later, she learned the affair wasn’t true. Lindsie Chrisley appeared in a few seasons of “Chrisley Knows Best” before 2017.
Now, she and her family are “co-existing,” she said. “I have their grandchild. “.
From: insider
URL: https://www.insider.com/todd-chrisleys-daughter-told-fbi-trying-to-exploit-her-2022-5
