3 hours ago
2
A disgraced and deported reality TV personality has begged President Donald Trump to allow him back into the country following his deportation six years ago.
Joe Giudice, 53, found fame as the husband of Teresa Giudice in The Real Housewives of New Jersey before being convicted on multiple counts of fraud and tax evasion in 2014. The husband and wife duo served 41 months and 15 months in prison, respectively.
The RHONJ alum rose to national notoriety following his high-profile legal troubles and prison sentence, which culminated in his green card being revoked and his deportation from the U.S. in 2019 after his release.
Giudice, an Italian-born construction worker who never became a U.S. citizen, made a direct plea to the president on Thursday evening in an attempt to return to the United States and visit his wife and four daughters.
“I’m Joe Giudice. I served my time, and I’ve been deported from the U.S. for nearly a decade,” Giudice, who lives in the Bahamas, wrote on Instagram.
“I was raised in Jersey, I’m a father of four amazing daughters, and I just want to be allowed to visit them again,” he added.
Tagging the commander-in-chief and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr’s Instagram accounts, Giudice added: “President Trump, I respect you and I’m asking for a second chance.”
He included the hashtags “#PardonJoeGiudice” and “#SecondChances.”
Giudice’s family rallied around him, with his wife, Teresa, posting the folded hands emoji and a heart, while his daughters, Gia, 24, a reality star in her own right, and Audriana, 15, posted “I love you.”
Another comment that gained hundreds of likes read that if Trump “can pardon the chrisleys he can pardon JOE!!!!”
According to TMZ, which spoke with Giudice’s immigration attorney Jessica Cadavid, he doesn’t believe he’ll ever be given permanent residence in the U.S. again.
Giudice hopes to be able to visit the U.S. occasionally to see his family, which his lawyer deemed fair, as he wasn’t convicted of a violent crime.
Next steps, Giudice’s lawyer said, will be to reach out to the Justice Department, not the White House.
Giudice’s appeal to Trump appears to be inspired by reality TV personalities Todd and Julie Chrisley, who received a presidential pardon late last month and were released from prison early.
The couple went from the stars of 2014’s Chrisley Knows Best to serving a combined 19-year prison sentence in under a decade after they were found guilty of conspiring to defraud community banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans in November 2022.
Giudice recently praised their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, in a Fox News interview for having “worked hard” to lobby the Trump administration to grant her parents clemency.
The 27-year-old spoke at the Republican National Convention last July and lambasted a so-called “two-faced justice system,” which she said had also ensnared the president.
