This morning, Real Housewives Of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice and her husband Joe Giudice both walked into a courtroom in Newark and entered pleas of not guilty to a litany of outstanding charges. They’ve publically vowed to fight the Federal Government’s claims with everything they have, but at this point, it seems like an uphill battle. From mail fraud to submitting false information on loan applications to hiding assets during bankruptcy, prosecutors have a ton of documentation they claim prove Teresa and Joe’s crimes are wide-ranging and worthy of extensive jail time. In fact, if the two are convicted, they could wind up spending decades behind bars.
The Federal Government has refused to get into the specifics of its case, but based on the charges, it’s pretty clear prosecutors think both Teresa and Joe had a hand in what happened. The latter has been charged with quite a few extra crimes, but it’s not as if Teresa has a few accessory counts. She receiving at least forty percent of the blame on paper, and to many of her biggest fans, that doesn’t make any sense. They think she should get offered a deal, do a little community service and issue an apology for her scheming husband.
You see, Teresa might be a beloved reality television personality, but she doesn’t have a reputation as an overly tan, aggressive Confucius. That’s not to say viewers think she’s a dumbass incapable of caring for herself, but she just doesn’t come off like the type of woman that would be setting up dummy corporations to hide assets or engineering schemes to commit mortgage fraud. She’s a pretty straight ahead, conventional thinking kind of lady interested in fashion, cooking, parties and not getting pushed around by other women. The crimes she’s accused of, on the other hand, seem to have been perpetrated by a wannabe mastermind with an eye toward monetary detail.
Joe has had more than his share of legal problems in the past. Consequently, many of Teresa’s biggest supporters are willing to simply throw him under the bus and conclude he’s guilty of absolutely everything and she’s completely innocent. The truth, however, is a whole lot less clear. Teresa might not be a rocket scientist, but that doesn’t mean she’s not telling her husband or accountants to hide assets from the government. She’s always tried to paint herself as a bit of an entrepreneur. She’s got plenty of side businesses, and she wasn’t exactly bowled over by the competition on Celebrity Apprentice. In theory, she's smart enough to say, "Gee, honey, let's pretend we didn't just sign a huge reality contract so the government doesn't take that too."
Still, it’s hard to reconcile the woman in a white dress who attended a book signing today and the woman who allegedly committed all this fraud. What do you think? Is Teresa smart enough to be guilty? Let us know your thoughts by voting in the poll below…
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