You’d think after spending 15 months in prison, paying over $400,000 in restitution and losing her husband to the clink for more than three years, Teresa Giudice would be extremely careful about, ya know, following laws. And yet.
Your second or third favorite cast member from your least favorite Real Housewives franchise has found herself in hot water yet again for violating the terms of her probation. Teresa is required to report any intersection with law enforcement and for reasons that truly escape me, she recently did not. TMZ reports on the fallout from some recent driving infractions:
According to court docs, the ‘RHONJ’ star failed to give her probation officer the heads-up after she was ticketed. The first one was for making an illegal turn last year. She and her lawyer were warned that any future contact with law enforcement had to be reported. But then she got another citation last month for using her phone while driving — and, again, she didn’t tell her P.O.
Teresa’s lawyer put on his lawyer hat and did some real lawyering by arguing that Teresa merely failed to report the tickets within the required 72 hour time frame. Now, I’m no lawyer or convicted criminal, but I always assumed that when a law includes a provision, that little detail is, in fact, part of the law.
Interestingly, Teresa was adamant about following all her probation orders when we saw her return from prison last season on the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Of course, she also had to wear an ankle monitor and had cameras following her around so any slip-up would have been greatly magnified.
I might buy that she forgot to report one ticket in the required time frame, but two? This seems particularly reckless for a woman who has four young daughters at home and a husband in prison. At the same time, this is someone who claims to have had no idea what the piles of documents she still happily signed said or pertained to.
Luckily for her, Teresa received only a letter of warning from her probation officer and was informed that if she violates her prohibition again, she’ll find herself back in court.