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Harriette Monica Walters (born September 1956) is a former civil servant who worked as a tax assessments manager for the District of Columbia. She was convicted of being the central participant in the largest fraud scheme ever perpetrated by a District of Columbia government official. According to those officials, she worked with others to fraudulently approve over $31 million in improper tax refunds, with some estimates nearing $50 million. In her office, she was referred to as "Mother Walters" for the loans and extravagant gifts with which she would shower her fellow employees and friends. Walters was arrested in November 2007.
From the Washington Examiner (June 30, 2009): 'Self-confessed tax scam mastermind Harriette Walters was led off to prison Tuesday, but not before warning a federal judge that the District's finance office is still dangerously exposed to another massive rip-off. "'If you let me into my office, I guarantee I could get each of you a check', Walters told prosecutors and federal Judge Emmet Sullivan before he sentenced her to 17-and-a-half years in prison."
The fraud scheme of Harriette Walters has been the subject of academic and professional publications. Jacoby, Loringo, and McCallum describe the mechanics of the fraud scheme together with some informative analytics looking at the amounts over time. The authors then review the importance of internal controls and also review the control activity deficiencies that allowed the proceeds of the fraud scheme to exceed $48 million. [1]
Walters was released from prison after serving more than 14 years on January 13, 2022. [2]
Omega Trust & Trading Ltd. was an American company that engaged in prime bank fraud from 1994 to 2000. The organization was created by retired electrician Clyde Hood, who presented it as an offshore investment program offering complex financial instruments with a payout of 50-to-1 or more. In 2001 Hood pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the scheme, and admitted that Omega investors could never have received the profits that they had been promised.
Maryanne Trump Barry was an American attorney and United States federal judge. She became an assistant United States attorney in 1974 and was first appointed to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. In 1999, she was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Bill Clinton.
A tax protester, in the United States, is a person who denies that he or she owes a tax based on the belief that the Constitution of the United States, statutes, or regulations do not empower the government to impose, assess or collect the tax. The tax protester may have no dispute with how the government spends its revenue. This differentiates a tax protester from a tax resister, who seeks to avoid paying a tax because the tax is being used for purposes with which the resister takes issue.
Eddie Ray Kahn is an American tax protester. Kahn was imprisoned for tax crimes and was released on January 5, 2021. Kahn founded the group American Rights Litigators and ran the for-profit businesses "Guiding Light of God Ministries" and "Eddie Kahn and Associates." According to the U.S. Justice Department, all three organizations are or were illegal tax evasion operations.
The miracle cars scam was an advance-fee scam run from 1997 to 2002 by Californians James R. Nichols and Robert Gomez. In its run of just over four years, over 4,000 people bought 7,000 cars that did not exist, netting over US$21 million from the victims.
John Peter Galanis is an American financier in the 1970s and 1980s, who became a notorious white-collar criminal. Galanis has four sons and, at the age of 76, is currently incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island in San Pedro, California, after being convicted in 2019 for defrauding a Native American tribal entity and various investment advisory clients of tens of millions of dollars in a fraudulent and deceptive bond scam.
Matthew Bevan "Matt" Cox is an American former mortgage broker and admitted mortgage fraudster. Cox, also a true crime author, wrote an unpublished manuscript entitled The Associates in which the main character traveled the country to perpetrate a mortgage fraud scheme similar to the one Cox ran.
In the United States, Medicare fraud is the claiming of Medicare health care reimbursement to which the claimant is not entitled. There are many different types of Medicare fraud, all of which have the same goal: to collect money from the Medicare program illegitimately.
The Spinka financial controversy is a case in which five Spinka charitable organisations under the auspices of Grand Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Weisz, the Spinka Rebbe of Boro Park, as well as Weisz himself, his personal assistant, and five others were charged with various counts of tax fraud and money laundering. Their indictment alleges that the five charities were used to launder money and to avoid payment of tax on taxable income by issuing fraudulent receipts for bogus charitable contributions, and charging fees for transfers of funds. Among those charged are four men from Los Angeles, California and two from Tel Aviv. These include a diamond merchant, a businessman, and an attorney. The five Spinka charitable organizations are Yeshiva Imrei Yosef, Yeshivath Spinka, Central Rabbinical Seminary, Machne Sva Rotzohn, and Mesivta Imrei Yosef Spinka, all based in Brooklyn.
The redemption movement is an element of the pseudolaw movement, mainly active in the United States and Canada, that promotes fraudulent debt and tax payment schemes. The movement is also called redemptionism. Redemption promoters allege that a secret fund is created for every citizen at birth and that a procedure exists to "redeem" or reclaim this fund to pay bills. Common redemption schemes include acceptance for value (A4V), Treasury Direct Accounts (TDA) and secured party creditor "kits," collections of pseudolegal tactics sold to participants despite a complete lack of any actual legal basis. Such tactics are sometimes called "money for nothing" schemes, as they propose to extract money from the government by using secret methods. The name of the A4V scheme in particular has become synonymous with the movement as a whole.
Dale Susan Fischer is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Charlene Shuler Corley is a former defense contractor who was convicted in 2007 on two counts of conspiracy. Over the course of nine years leading up to September 2006, the company owned by Corley and her sister was found to have received over US$21.5 million from the United States Department of Defense for fraudulent shipping costs; in one instance, the company was paid US$998,798 for shipping two 19-cent washers. In 2009, Corley was sentenced to 78 months in prison and ordered to pay US$15.5 million in restitution.
Cramming is a form of fraud in which small charges are added to a bill by a third party without the subscriber's consent, approval, authorization or disclosure. These may be disguised as a tax, some other common fee or a bogus service, and may be several dollars or even just a few cents. The crammer's intent is that the subscriber will overlook and ultimately pay these small charges without challenging their legitimacy or inquiring further.
Preetinder Singh Bharara is an Indian-born American lawyer and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He is currently a partner at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for five years prior to leading the Southern District of New York.
1099 OID fraud is a common scam used to obtain money from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by filing false tax refund claims.
Rose Marks is the American matriarch of a family of fraudulent psychics convicted of federal crimes in 2013 in Florida. Marks and members of her extended family operated multiple storefront businesses, four in Broward County, Florida one of which was in Fort Lauderdale, named "Astrology Life" and one in Manhattan on W. 58th Street near Central Park. They told vulnerable clients that the only solution to their problems was to give the purported psychics money. Prior to this case there was doubt that a psychic could be criminally charged. Jurors were told that fortune-telling is constitutionally protected free speech, but federal prosecutors contended Marks engaged in fraud by promising to keep clients' money safe, "cleanse" it and return it when she had no intention of returning it. The case drew widespread coverage. Charles Stack, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective, said the case and the ensuing publicity brought attention to predatory and fraudulent fortune tellers.
The Mantria Corporation Ponzi scheme has been described as the "biggest green energy scam" in United States history. A Federal judge in the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil case found Mantria had scammed more than $54.5 million “by egregiously, recklessly, knowingly, and shamelessly perpetrating a fraudulent scheme” that used “misrepresentations, omissions, and blatant lies to induce unsuspecting and unwitting victim investors to liquidate the equity in their homes and take out bank loans to invest in Defendants’ scheme, which was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.” On November 16, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged four people who targeted those nearing retirement age who were seeking real estate and "green" investments. Many of these securities were offered by Mantria Corporation.
Adaoha Ugo-Ngadi also known as Ada Udo-Ngadi is the managing director of Ontario Oil & Gas Nigeria Limited. She was a former employee of First Bank of Nigeria and Access Bank plc.