Teresa Giudice, star of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” has filed legal documents asking that she serve no jail time at all, but rather face community service and home detention.
She is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday along with her husband, Joe Giudice, for bank fraud. Joe is facing a possible sentence of 47 months in prison, followed by deportation. While sentencing for Teresa is expected to be lighter, she is still facing possible time behind bars.
The reality television star tried to encourage the judge not to be influenced by her portrayal on the Bravo reality show. She says the show is “little more than a carefully crafted fiction, engineered by Bravo TV through scripted lines and clever editing,” according to TMZ, and that she is much nicer than she appears on-screen.
Additionally, Giudice cited her four children. With her husband facing a prison sentence and possible deportation back to Italy after that, she insists that if she is incarcerated, her four children will have to be separated as she has no one relative who can take them all in.
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She said she would forfeit any ill-gotten gains from the fraud, and offered alternative options to prison like house arrest and community service.
It’s a plea for mercy from the court, as sentencing guidelines in this case call for a penalty of between 21 and 27 months in prison.