A federal grand jury in St. Paul returned an indictment yesterday charging a Minnesota man with assisting in the preparation of false income tax returns and wire fraud.
According to the indictment, from 2014 to 2018, Beau Wesley Gensmer, of Prior Lake, owned a purported consulting company and, starting in 2014, hired a tax return preparer in Anchorage, Alaska, to prepare and electronically file federal income tax returns for members of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the Native American tribe that owns Mystic Lake and Little Six Casinos outside of Minneapolis.
Gensmer allegedly convinced tribal members to hire him to assist in the preparation and filing of their tax returns. The indictment alleges that Gensmer then emailed the Alaskan return preparer false information she used to prepare income tax returns for the tribe members that claimed fraudulent business losses and charitable contributions.
The materially false entries allegedly resulted in tax refunds that averaged more than $100,000 for each client. Gensmer’s scheme allegedly involved numerous false income tax returns, for which he received approximately 30% of each inflated tax refund. In total, Gensmer is alleged to have caused a tax loss to the IRS of more than $1.5 million.
The defendant will appear before a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of Minnesota for his initial court appearance. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and 3 years in prison for each false tax return charge. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, and United States Attorney Andrew M. Luger for the District of Minnesota made the announcement.
IRS-Criminal Investigation is investigating the case. Trial Attorneys Ahmed Almudallal and Dominick Giovanniello of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and are prosecuting the case.
