Rodney Quinn Rupe, a 47-year-old former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee from Syracuse, Utah, has been sentenced to just over a year in federal prison for wire fraud after attempting to steal more than $2 million in tax credits. The sentencing was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Howard C. Nielson.
Rupe pleaded guilty to the charge on June 11, 2025. In addition to his prison term of 12 months and one day, he will serve two years of supervised release following his incarceration.
Court documents reveal that on April 15, 2022, while employed at the IRS, Rupe accessed IRS systems and transferred $2,021,986 in tax credits from ExxonMobil’s taxpayer account to an account belonging to Ex XO Exteriors Ltd., a company he had created and controlled. He executed these transfers using interstate wires on three separate occasions.
On September 18, 2023, Rupe moved the tax credits so they would be applied to his company’s 2019 tax year account with the intent of generating a refund check payable to Ex XO Exteriors Ltd. After resigning from the IRS on October 31, 2023, Rupe attempted several times in 2024 to deposit the refund check but was unsuccessful and subsequently arrested.
U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak for the District of Utah stated: “As a former IRS employee, Mr. Rupe accessed an IRS database as a trusted government employee to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars for his own personal use. This administration is committed to ferreting out programmatic government fraud, particularly by those who abused their positions rather than protecting the Americans they swore to serve.”
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) conducted the investigation into this case. Assistant United States Attorney Carl D. LeSueur prosecuted the matter.
