Nigerian pleads guilty to $12m tax fraud in US

A Nigerian, who resided in St. Louis, Missouri, pleaded guilty on Friday to mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, voter fraud and illegally re-entering the United States after having been removed, announced Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Acting U.S. Attorney Carrie Costantin for the Eastern District of Missouri.

According to documents filed with the court, Kevin Kunlay Williams a.k.a Kunlay Sodipo, 56, and others stole public school employees’ IDs from a payroll company and used them to electronically file more than 2,000 fraudulent federal income tax returns seeking more than $12 million in refunds. He also stole several return preparer’s Electronic Filing Identification Numbers (EFINs) and used them to secure tax-related bank products and services that facilitated the issuance of tax refunds, to include blank check stock and debit cards. Williams used the blank stock to print checks funded by the fraudulent refunds and directed some of the refunds onto debit cards.

Williams previously entered the United States from Nigeria under the name Kunlay Sodipo, but was deported in 1995. In 1999, Williams illegally returned to the United States from Nigeria using the last name Williams. In 2012, Williams registered to vote in federal, state and local elections by falsely claiming that he was a US citizen and voted in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections.

Williams remains in federal custody and his sentencing is scheduled for October 13 before Chief U.S. District Judge Rodney W. Sippel.

Williams faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for mail fraud, 10 years in prison for illegal reentry, five years in prison for each voter fraud count and a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft. Williams also faces a period of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and deportation.

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Goldberg and Acting U.S. Attorney Costantin commended special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation, FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service as well as the Dothan, Alabama Police Department and Alexander City, Alabama Police Department, who investigated this case, and Trial Attorneys Michael C. Boteler and Charles M. Edgar, Jr. of the Tax Division, who are prosecuting this case with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the Eastern District of Missouri and Middle District of Alabama.