In 2009, The Real Housewives of New Jersey stars Joe and Teresa Giudice filed for bankruptcy. Now, the bankruptcy case is over and according to The New Jersey Star-Ledger, Teresa and Joe still owe $13.4 million to creditors.
The couple has only paid back $7,500 of that massive amount to try and satisfy their debt. Some of their larger debts include $5.4 million to Wachovia, $1.7 million to the Community Bank of Bergen County and $1.3 million to Dime Savings Bank. They also owe more than $500,000 in taxes to the State of New Jersey and more than $386,000 to the IRS.
In addition to the crushing debt, the Giudices are still facing jail time after pleading guilty on several fraud charges that helped them obtain bank loans to keep up with the lavish lifestyle the portrayed on TV.
On the show, Teresa blamed the recession’s impact on Joe’s construction business for their financial crisis.
“We didn’t spend millions of dollars on gold toilets or private planes,” Teresa wrote in her Bravo blog after they filed bankruptcy. “We bought buildings, fixed them up, and tried to help other people start their own businesses or be able to afford an apartment.”
According to The New Jersey Record, the Giudices were also accused of concealing major assets from the bankruptcy trustee, which was one of the several instances of fraud they were indicted on.
“They are going to owe whatever they owed, as if they had not fought bankruptcy,” Ronald LeVine, a New Jersey bankruptcy attorney told The Star-Ledger. “They’re completely stuck with their debt. It was a terrible decision to file for bankruptcy. They might have gotten away under the radar otherwise.”
Despite facing jail time and being millions of dollars in debt, Teresa continues to put her life on camera. She’s currently filming for The Real Housewives of New Jersey season 6. The cameras even caught her and her husband sitting her four daughters down to tell them about the severity of their situation.
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“They filmed her telling all her kids, it was an emotional time for her,” an insider told RadarOnline. “She wanted to be completely honest and so she showed that to her family and her fans are going to get to see that too.”
The source indicates that Teresa’s lawyers are going to ask for a lesser sentence that would not include jail time.
“Prosecutors will ask that if the judge sentences Teresa to house arrest that no cameras be allowed to film during that time,” the insider said.
(Image and videos courtesy of Bravo)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
