Tax Scam Target Gets Nine Years in Jail

For about two decades, a nice gal named Harriette Walters, who worked in the D.C. tax office, was stealing money from the D.C. treasury and giving it to her co-conspirators, who were often friends and family. This embezzlement scheme ended up draining about $50 million from the treasury until it was discovered in late 2007. Yesterday, a co-conspirator to Walters "who had a hand" in about $24 million of that was sentenced to nine years in prison, the longest sentence granted in the scheme thus far.

The sentencee, Jayrece Turnbull, is Harriette Walters' niece, so who knows how authorities discovered a link. Turnbull's home was raided by federal agents in 2007. Boy oh boy, was it a jackpot! They found designer shoes, luggage, purses, shoes, and purses, and shoes. Apparently Turnbull spent over $100,000 on Louis Vuitton "gear" alone. They make very popular purses, after all.

Turnbull's indiscretion didn't end with the dumb Frenchy clothes, either. She also blew everything else for her other conspirators!

Frustrated by a SunTrust bank manager's questions about a $410,000 check that she had deposited in June 2007, Turnbull enlisted a lawyer and on at least one occasion told the bank its actions were illegal. The bank called the FBI.

With that, the fraud began to unravel.

Yeah, all Turnbull had to have was one weird check for the FBI to figure everything else out. This makes it seem rather simple, which is odd, because it apparently wasn't apparently simple enough to figure out for two decades.

Jim Newell steals money from the people who click on his articles at Wonkette and IvyGate.

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