This week, United States District Judge Elizabeth A. Kovachevich sentenced Everett Taylor to eight years and six months in federal prison for aggravated identity theft and theft of government funds. The court has also ordered the defendant to forfeit real property in Tampa traceable to the offenses. Everett Taylor pleaded guilty to the charges on July 3, 2017.
Court documents show that Taylor and his brother, Robert Earl Taylor, carried out a scheme to file false and fraudulent income tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service with the intention of generating large refunds. The investigation concluded that the IRS had received fraudulent returns and had issued refunds totaling $304,411.24 based on fraudulent tax filings in the amount of $575,884.24.
Before trial, Everett Taylor was released from jail and ordered to home confinement and electronic monitoring. In June of 2015, the defendant removed the electronic monitoring device and fled. He remained at least until mid-2017. In January of 2015, Robert Earl Taylor was sentenced to eight months of home detention for theft of government property, making fraudulent claims to the Department of the Treasury and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Additional details can be found here.