ATLANTA — Pardoned reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley are suing one of their former attorneys here in Atlanta, seeking damages of $25 million.
According to a complaint filed in federal court, the Chrisleys say their former attorney, Christopher Anulewicz, and his former law firm, Balch & Bingham, didn’t do their job right, causing them to go to prison.
They also accused Anulewicz of taking advantage of the Chrisleys as well.
“While he was supposed to be managing this complex federal defense, he found time to steer the Chrisleys into a $75,000 investment in his brother-in-law’s startup food truck business—exploiting his position as their attorney to benefit himself and his family while neglecting his duty to them,” the complaint reads.
The complaint says Anulewicz was a “catastrophic, unforced error that sent two people to federal prison for crimes they would never have been convicted of had their lawyers done their jobs.”
The couple were pardoned by President Donald Trump in May 2025 after being sent to federal prison.
Todd and Julie Chrisley were federally indicted in August 2019. Prosecutors said the couple submitted fake documents to banks when applying for loans.
Julie Chrisley sent a fake credit report and bank statements showing far more money than they had in their accounts to a California property owner in July 2014 while trying to rent a home.
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A few months after they began using the home, in October 2014, they refused to pay rent, causing the owner to have to threaten them with eviction.
The money the Chrisleys received from their reality television show, “Chrisley Knows Best,” went to a company they controlled called 7C’s Productions, but they didn’t declare it as income on federal tax returns, prosecutors said.
The couple failed to file or pay their federal income taxes on time for multiple years.
The family had moved to Tennessee by the time the indictment was filed, but the criminal charges stem from when they lived in Atlanta’s northern suburbs.
Trump’s pardon absolves the couple of tax evasion and bank fraud convictions that were years in the making.
The couple complainsattorneys’ that Anulewicz’s “failures were catastrophic.”
“The derivative documents that Defendants failed to challenge formed the core of the government’s case. Without them, there was no prosecution. With them, Todd and Julie Chrisley were convicted on every count. They served time in federal prison. They were separated from each other and from their children. They lost their television show and endorsement deals, costing them more than $25 million in income. Their reputations were destroyed. They have spent millions more in appeals and post-conviction proceedings, all of it an attempt to undo harm that a single timely motion would have prevented. A lawyer with actual criminal defense competence, supervised by a firm that took its professional obligations seriously, would never have let this happen,” the complaint states.
The couple are now asking for a trial, seeking $25 million in damages as well as attorneys’ fees and any “further relief as the Court deems just and proper.”
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