ATLANTA — The Atlanta-area accountant convicted of helping reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley evade taxes says he plans to ask President Donald Trump to pardon him, too, a day after the couple found out they’d be freed.

Peter Tarantino, 62, was found guilty alongside the Chrisleys in 2022 and was sentenced to three years in prison. He paid a $35,000 fine and spent about 18 months in custody before being released in November 2024.

“I would like to have my voting rights reinstated and pursue getting my (certified public accountant) license restored,” Tarantino told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I think that the prosecution was overly aggressive in charging me. When there are high-profile people involved, there’s a certain motivation by the prosecution to make as big a splash as possible.”

Trump said Tuesday he will pardon the Chrisleys, who received “pretty harsh treatment.”

Todd Chrisley, 57, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay $17.2 million in restitution. Julie Chrisley, 52, was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $4.7 million.

An Atlanta jury found the Chrisleys guilty of defrauding community banks out of $36 million and hiding millions of dollars in earnings from their reality television show to avoid paying taxes. A White House official confirmed the Chrisleys were pardoned Wednesday afternoon. A lawyer for Todd and Julie Chrisley said they could be released from prison in Florida and Kentucky, respectively, as early as Wednesday.

Tarantino said the evidence presented at trial supports his innocence. He said he had not previously sought a pardon, in part because he does not have the resources and the “platform” of the Chrisley family.

Case records show the Chrisleys were already wealthy from real estate ventures when they landed a reality television show about their family in 2013 while living in the Atlanta area.

Tarantino said the couple were among 500 tax clients of his then-firm, and he was unaware they were trying to hide assets.

“Had I been aware of it, I would have said goodbye,” he said Wednesday. “I did not conspire to prevent the IRS’ collection efforts. Their own revenue agent testified that I provided everything she needed to collect the Chrisleys’ tax.”

Tarantino’s wife, Cathie Tarantino, said her husband was “collateral damage” of the Chrisleys’ alleged crimes. She said she has a “tell-all” book coming out later this year revealing things about the case and the Chrisleys, who are “not what they seem.”

“They don’t deserve a pardon,” Cathie Tarantino said of the couple. “They were convicted because they were guilty. And my husband was convicted because anyone in their orbit was painted with the same brush, as they say. It was basically guilt by association.”

The Chrisleys have said their prosecution was political and the trial judge, appointed by Barack Obama, is biased against them. Their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, spoke at the Republican National Convention in July 2024 and visited The White House in February 2025.

It was a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia who indicted Todd and Julie Chrisley and Peter Tarantino in August 2019. Their convictions were upheld in June 2024 by the conservative-leaning 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to which Trump has appointed six judges.

The appeals court ruled Julie Chrisley must be resentenced, because it was not clear whether she was involved in the bank fraud scheme from the beginning.

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, who presided over the trial, refused to reduce Julie Chrisley’s prison term. The Chrisley matriarch’s appeal of her new sentence is pending.

Alex Little, an attorney for the Chrisleys, said Trump’s pardon moots the appeal. Little said he believes the pardon also wipes out the Chrisleys’ restitution, some of which has been paid.

“The way President Trump described it on the phone, we believe it’s a full pardon,” Little said Wednesday.

“Your parents are going to be free and clean, and I hope we can do it by tomorrow,” Trump told the Chrisleys’ children during a recorded phone conversation published on social media Tuesday by his communications manager.

Little said the Chrisleys will return to their home in Nashville, Tennessee.

Trump has pardoned dozens of people since the start of the year, including defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. His recent pardons have come in white-collar cases involving tax, fraud and securities charges.

Atlanta attorney David Chaiken, a former federal prosecutor, warned the Chrisleys’ pardons may exacerbate what he calls a recruiting and retention crisis in federal law enforcement.

Presidential pardons are supposed to be used to correct injustices or allow for mercy in unique cases, he said. But the justification for the Chrisleys’ pardons, including claims made by the president himself about a weaponized justice system and rogue prosecutors, may discourage future lawyers and investigators from wanting to work for the U.S. Department of Justice or the FBI, Chaiken said.

“The best and brightest will not want to work there, and those already working there will be less inclined to work long hours for low pay to bring the most challenging cases,” he said.

Harrison Fields of the White House press team added: “The president is always pleased to give well-deserving Americans a second chance, especially those who have been unfairly targeted and overly prosecuted by an unjust justice system. President Trump called Savannah and her brother from the Oval Office to personally inform them that he would be pardoning their parents, Todd and Julie Chrisley, whose sentences were far too harsh.”

Peter Tarantino said he can never get back the months he spent in a federal prison camp in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was when his son graduated from college and his father died. He said the Chrisleys never sought his pardon while advocating for their own.

_____

©2025 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.