Gregory J. Haanstad, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, announced that on September 7, 2017, LaTanya Ghee, (age: 51) of Milwaukee, was sentenced to one year in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. On April 18, 2017, Ghee pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 286. Ghee was also ordered to pay restitution of $84,734 to the government.
According to the plea agreement, beginning in approximately 2011, and continuing until at least May 2012, Ghee conspired with others to defraud the Internal Revenue Service through a scheme to obtain false federal income tax refunds. To accomplish this, Ghee worked with others to file federal income tax returns with false wage and tax-withholding amounts. Using the information obtained and provided by Ghee, the co-conspirators prepared and filed tax returns that falsely claimed wage and tax-withholding amounts from Ghee’s businesses, Wisconsin Mortgage Real Estate Resources, Ghee’s Mortgages, and others. In reality, the individuals had either lesser or no wages or tax-withholding amounts from those businesses.
Based on her role in the conspiracy, Ghee received payment from the fraudulently obtained tax refunds. As a result of the conspiracy, Ghee caused the filing of more than a dozen false income tax returns with the IRS seeking more than $100,000 in fraudulent income tax refunds.
This case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Matthew D. Krueger. # #
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
