On Oct. 9, 2014, in Springfield, Missouri, Daniel D. Whitworth, of Joplin, was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay $404,957 in restitution to his former clients and $72,810 to the government. In addition, Whitworth surrendered his license to practice law. On March 31, 2014, Whitworth pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering and false statements on tax returns. According to court documents, Whitworth embezzled approximately $576,739 from 22 of his legal clients between 2004 and Oct. 18, 2013. Whitworth spent these embezzled funds on personal loans and items unrelated to the legal matters of his clients. Whitworth failed to report the embezzled funds on his personal income tax returns for the years 2009 through 2011, which totaled $448,835. For 2012, Whitworth did not file an income tax return and therefore did not report the embezzled funds during this year as well.
On Oct. 8, 2014, in Sherman, Texas, Shirley Jean Emert, of Spring Branch, was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay $697,187 in restitution. Emert pleaded guilty in February 2014 to making and subscribing to a false tax return for the calendar year 2010. According to court documents, Emert embezzled funds from her employer in the amounts of $53,859 in 2008; $126,202 in 2009; $172,965 in 2010; and $166,254 in 2011. Emert failed to report the income on the corresponding tax year returns. Emert’s willful act of falsely reporting income on her tax returns for the years 2008 through 2011 resulted in income tax due and owing in the amount of $159,907.
On Oct. 2, 2014, in New Orleans, Louisiana, Jabari Ragas, of New Orleans, was sentenced to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release for money laundering and tax fraud. Ragas was also ordered to pay nearly $1,700,000 in restitution for the money laundering count, and $259,210 for the tax fraud count. According to court documents, Ragas was employed by as a registered broker and investment adviser from 2005 through 2009. Ragas previously pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $1,400,000 from clients, and failing to pay nearly $260,000 in tax due and owing to the IRS. In early 2006, a client of Ragas indicated that he wished to open a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) account to allow him to contribute towards retirement. Without authorization, Ragas began moving money from the SEP account into an account controlled by Ragas. Ragas supplied the client with a fraudulent account statement along with a fraudulent balance. After using the interstate wire to embezzle funds from the client’s account, Ragas then committed money laundering by further transferring $20,000 into a different account that he controlled. Additionally, on Oct. 12, 2008, Ragas signed and filed an income tax return for 2007 that did not report approximately $288,000 in income.