Pensacola (Florida), May 29 (AP) Reality TV star Todd Chrisley was released from federal prison on Wednesday after being pardoned by US President Donald Trump, a spokesperson for his defence lawyer said.
Chrisley (57), best known for the TV series “Chrisley Knows Best", was freed from a minimum-security prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, where he was imprisoned after being convicted three years ago of bank fraud and tax evasion.
His wife and TV co-star, 52-year-old Julie Chrisley, was also pardoned by Trump. It was not immediately known when she would be released from a prison facility in Lexington, Kentucky.
Their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, was seen standing outside the minimum security prison camp where her father was held in Pensacola awaiting his release.
She said her brother, Grayson, was picking up their mother in Lexington.
“We just want to get home. We want to be reunited,” she said, wearing a bubble gum pink MAGA hat and a matching “Women for Trump” jacket.
She added: “My parents have not spoken to each other, heard each others' voices or seen each other in the past two-and-a-half years.”
The Chrisleys' TV show portrayed them as a tight-knit family with an extravagant lifestyle.
Prosecutors at the couple's 2022 trial said they spent lavishly on expensive cars, designer clothes, real estate and travel after taking out fraudulent bank loans worth millions of dollars and hiding their earnings from tax authorities.
Trump announced his intention to pardon them on Tuesday, saying the celebrity couple had been “given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I'm hearing".
It was another example of the president, himself a former reality TV star, pardoning high-profile friends, supporters, donors and former staffers.
Savannah Chrisley has been a vocal Trump supporter and endorsed his candidacy in a speech at the Republican National Convention last summer.
Though she complained that the case against her parents was politically motivated, they were indicted in 2019 under a Trump-appointed US attorney, Byung J “BJay” Pak.
Regardless, Savannah Chrisley said officials in the Trump administration who reviewed her parents' case had “seen the corruption".
She told reporters that the president delivered the news of the pardons himself, calling unexpectedly while she was at the grocery store. (AP) ARI