Credit: Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock
Savannah Chrisley revealed that her mother, Julie Chrisley, fell ill before her June visit to the Lexington, Kentucky prison, where Julie has been serving a five-year sentence since January 2023, on a recent episode of her podcast.
While discussing what she claims are “inhumane” and senseless conditions at the facility, Savannah, 26, reflected on the ups and downs of her recent visit, where two other families were also visiting their loved ones, as Julie, 51, was granted a court date for a new sentencing after her previous judgment was thrown out.
“I was able to see her and that was really tough because I was sitting in that visitation room and there was one family and you could tell that the young teenage kids were just struggling a lot. And they ended up screaming at their mom and leaving in tears. The mom was in tears. They were in tears. The whole thing was just so heartbreaking,” Savannah revealed on Unlocked, via Entertainment Tonight. “And then you had another family, they were so happy and hugging and laughing because it was their last visit before she went home.”
Because her mother had been faced with illness prior to the visit, Savannah said she was happy to see her mother enjoying an air-conditioned visitation room.
“Outside the visitation room there is zero air conditioning. And the heat index was 105, 110 [degrees] and that’s what mom’s living in, is in conditions like that with absolutely no air,” she claimed. “And it can be 100 degrees inside the building. She literally said that she got physically sick because she got so hot. So, you have these women who are suffering from heat exhaustion and they’re passing out. But yet, there’s service dogs that have air conditioning. None of it makes sense to me.”
According to Savannah, she believes the conditions at the Federal Medical Center are completely unfair.
“It is so beyond inhumane that you cannot make it up. And it’s tough,” she shared. “Mom is super excited for visitation because she got to be in an air-conditioned room. It makes me realize how much we take for granted. How we just walk in a place and it’s air-conditioned, and that’s the normal.”
“Unfortunately for these men and women it’s just not, and it’s really tough to hear those struggles,” she added.
As Chrisley Knows Best fans may recall, Julie and her husband, Todd Chrisley, 55, were indicted in 2019 on charges of tax evasion and bank fraud and convicted in 2022. Months later, Julie began serving a seven-year term, which was reduced to five years last year and later overturned.
Although both Julie and Todd appealed their sentences, Todd’s appeal was rejected as he continued to serve his 12-year prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Pensacola in Florida.
During a visit with Todd earlier this month, Savannah revealed that her father broke down in tears when he learned Julie’s prison sentence had been thrown out.
“He was crying, like, happy tears knowing that Mom could be home,” she told listeners. “That’s the only thing he cares about right now is getting her home.”
As for Julie’s potential release from prison, she will return to court in Atlanta on September 25 for her resentencing.
PEOPLE confirmed the news on July 26, noting that Julie’s previous sentence was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.
“The problem is that we have not located the evidence the district court relied on in adopting that finding,” the judges wrote in their June 21 ruling. “Our review of the record hasn’t revealed evidence to show, even by a preponderance of the evidence, that [Julie] was involved in 2006. Indeed, the government’s brief concedes that the evidence shows Julie ‘participated in the bank fraud conspiracy from 2007,’ not 2006.”
Speaking of Julie’s fears on her podcast, Savannah admitted that her parents have become “institutionalized.”
“She was like, ‘You know, you can’t leave me when I come home. Right?'” Savannah recalled. “And I was like, ‘What do you mean? She was like, ‘I mean, I know you wanna have your own life, and I want you to do that… But for the first few months, you’re gonna have to stay with me. Like, we’re gonna have to get adjusted.'”