“Real Housewives of New Jersey” alum Joe Giudice doesn’t believe the crimes he committed warranted his 2019 deportation.
During an interview with Page Six, Giudice said, “I definitely don’t think I should have been deported.” The former reality TV star was born in Italy and moved to New Jersey when he was a baby.
“I was [in the US] since I was a year old. I have four kids there. I was married. Got my whole family there. I mean, it was my fault that I got deported because I should have just became [sic] a citizen a long time ago, so I’m not blaming anybody. You know, it was my fault. I had a chance to become a citizen many, many times,” Giudice told the outlet.
Giudice was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison in 2014 after pleading guilty to multiple counts of fraud, including bankruptcy and mail fraud. His case stemmed from years of submitting false financial information to obtain loans and avoid taxes. Giudice served his sentence beginning in 2016 and was later released in 2019, after which he was deported to Italy due to his non-U.S. citizenship.
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He eventually moved to the Bahamas and has opened a business, offering private tours of the island by land and water. Giudice told the outlet that the Bahamas “pretty much” feels like home, while revealing his one regret was not obtaining U.S. citizenship earlier in his life.
“But being that I wasn’t a citizen, I had to do all that extra time and go through all that. But it’s not only me going through whatever I went through. I mean, my poor kids, you know what I mean? My ex, my family. They had to go through a lot as well,” Giudice said, referring to “RHONJ” star Teresa Giudice.
Both Teresa and Joe were indicted in 2013 and took a plea the following year.
“The lawyers were like, ‘Just take the plea. Teresa is going to stay home, and you go to jail.’ Well, when we went to court, it didn’t happen that way,” Giudice told the outlet.
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Teresa spent a little less than a year in jail in 2015 before Joe began his sentence.
Since his deportation, Joe has tried to appeal it several times, but has been denied. According to Giudice, “somebody in there has it out for [him].”
“It’s crazy because then you see Mrs. [Michelle] Obama talking about [how her] favorite ‘Housewife’ is Teresa,” he said. Giudice also told the outlet that he knows President Donald Trump because he “was on ‘The Celebrity Apprentice.'”
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It was actually Teresa who appeared on the former series, hosted by Trump, during season five. Trump has never publicly acknowledged Giudice’s attempt for a pardon.
Giudice told the outlet that he no longer wishes to live in America and his daughters come to visit him often.
“I don’t wanna live [in the US]. I really don’t wanna live there. All I wanna do is be able to go to my daughters’ graduations. You know, when we have Easter, we have Christmas, holidays. Because it’s a lot for my family, for everybody, to come here,” he said, referring to his daughters: Gia, Gabriella, Milania, and Audriana Giudice.
