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former IRS The employee was indicted Utah Federal Court He was accused of trying to steal $2.1 million in tax credits. ExxonMobil He misappropriated funds by using taxpayer databases to which he had access.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that a former IRS account management employee Rodney Quinn Loop After diverting Exxon tax credits to entities he created, he received U.S. Treasury checks for $2,100,377 in January and then attempted to deposit the checks at multiple credit unions over the next two months.
Lupe, 46, of Syracuse, Utah, is charged with wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud and theft of government property. U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
He is scheduled to make his initial appearance in the case in that court on July 3. The case was featured on legal news websites on Thursday. Court Watch.
Lupe worked at an IRS service center. Ogden, UtahThe defendants began the diversion scheme in 2021, according to the indictment filed Wednesday.
As part of his job, Lupe “had the authority to adjust taxes, deductions, penalties and interest for certain taxpayer accounts in the IRS computer database,” according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, Lupe accessed Exxon’s taxpayer accounts through an IRS database beginning in April 2021, and three months later accessed the database “to assign a newly created Employer Identification Number (EIN) to a legal entity called Ex Xo Exteriors Ltd., which Lupe created and controlled.”
According to the indictment, Lupe allegedly accessed the database in April 2022 and transferred $2.02 million in tax credits from a taxpayer account belonging to oil and gas giant Exxon to a taxpayer account belonging to Ex Xo Exteriors Ltd.
More than a year later, in August 2023, Lupe “accessed an IRS database and transferred misappropriated tax credit funds from one tax year to another,” according to the indictment.
One month later, the defendants allegedly applied these tax credits to Ex Xo Exterior’s 2019 tax account, which resulted in the IRS issuing a $2.1 million refund to Ex Xo Exterior in the form of a Treasury check, according to the indictment.
He then attempted to deposit the checks at multiple America First Credit Union branches.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Salt Lake City, which is prosecuting the case, and Lupe’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
An Exxon Mobil spokesman declined to comment on the indictment.
An IRS spokesman and a spokesman for America First Credit Union did not immediately comment.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General for Tax Administration, which investigated Lupe, said in an email to CNBC that “TIGTA does not comment on matters of ongoing or pending indictments by the Department of Justice.”
