Reality TV couple Julie and Todd Chrisley are on trial.
Prosecutors said they burned through money on a lifestyle outside their budget.
The fraud was committed by a former employee who also reported the couple to the FBI, according to their lawyer.
According to prosecutors, Todd and Julie Chrisley lived an extravagant lifestyle that was built on lies.
The couple best known for their USA Network reality series "Chrisley Knows Best" submitted fake documents exaggerating their wealth to banks to borrow more than $30.
Peters told the jury that they made up documents and lied to get what they wanted.
Todd Chrisley wore a navy blue suit while sitting in a 17th floor Atlanta federal courtroom with his wife, Julie, and their legal team. Two of their children were in the courtroom.
Julie Chrisley is charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly inflating her income to rent a $13,000-a-month California home that she did not pay the rent on.
The Chrisley's accountant is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and two counts of willfully filing false tax returns.
The Chrisleys have denied all of the charges, and their lawyer blames the former employee who turned the couple into the FBI for all of the bank fraud and tax evasion.
Bruce H. Morris alleged in his opening statement that Braddock impersonated Todd Chrisley and then turned on them when he was fired.
Morris said that Braddock was obsessed with Todd Chrisley and wanted to be like him, buying homes and furniture to live a lifestyle that mimicked his.
An attorney for Tarantino said that his client was an accountant who failed the CPA exam many times and was unqualified to take on the Chrisleys. He is not a criminal, but he is a procrastinator.
Peters said in her opening that Braddock was a fraudster, but that he was offered immunity for his crimes, as well as the specific instances of fraud committed by the couple, which was then backed up with other evidence.
She said that the couple continued to commit fraud even after cutting ties with Braddock.
She said that they were dead to each other.
Peters said that Todd Chrisley made his money by buying homes, fixing them up, decorating them, and selling them for a profit.
He was successful at that for a while.
Peters said the business was doing well but the couple was spending more than they were making.
She said they burned through their money on luxury cars, designer clothes, and a lifestyle outside of their budget.
To get even more, the couple and Braddock began a scheme called "scrapbooking" which involved putting together parts of various documents when applying for personal loans to make it look like they had more money than they did.
Peters said that they targeted over a dozen community banks with their schemes.
A statement made it look like Todd Chrisley had $4 million in an account, when he never had more than $20,000.
She said that they used new loans to make payments on old loans.
Chrisley walked away from $20 million in loans and put a hold on the collection of $500,000 he owed on his taxes in 2012 after he claimed bankruptcy, Peters said.
The couple got a reality show deal.
Chrisley Knows Best, a reality show which chronicles the extravagent lifestyle of the couple and their children, made the couple $6 million over the course of three years.
They tried to hide the money by opening a side company and having paychecks deposited there.
Julie Chrisley was the president of that company until March 7, 2017, a day after she learned that the FBI was investigating them. After the family moved from Atlanta to Nashville, she went into the local Bank of America branch and put the 7C's company in Todd Chrisley's mother's name.
Peters said the goal was to hide the money.
A talent manager who helped the Chrisley family get social media endorsement deals, a Bank of America supervisor who was familiar with Julie Chrisley, and an IRS investigator were called by prosecutors on Tuesday.
The trial is expected to last four weeks.
The original article can be found on Insider.
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