Washington, D.C. – Samuel Earl Pope, 61, of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty this morning in federal court to money laundering conspiracy and mail fraud charges, becoming the seventh defendant in the long-running District of Columbia Office of Tax & Revenue property tax refund fraud scheme to enter a guilty plea, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein, Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Charles J. Willoughby, Inspector General for the District of Columbia, Special Agent in Charge C. André Martin, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, and District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi jointly announced today.

Pope pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan. The maximum sentence for money laundering conspiracy is 20 years of incarceration, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $500,000 or twice the gain to Pope. The maximum sentence for mail fraud is 20 years of imprisonment, three years supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gain. Under the non-binding U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, Pope faces a likely prison sentence of between 51 and 63 months and a fine of between $10,000 and $100,000. Pope agreed to provide $1,586,406.26 in restitution to the District of Columbia. No sentencing date has been set, although a status hearing has been scheduled for September 22, 2008.

According to the factual proffer presented by the government in Court earlier today, Pope met Harriette Walters in the late 1980s, when she began coming to his hair salon, Head to Toe, in Southwest Washington, D.C. Walters was an employee of the D.C. Office of Tax & Revenue (OTR) and has been charged with embezzling funds by creating and approving fraudulent property tax refund applications. Walters explained her scheme to Pope, and he agreed to allow her to use his company’s name as a payee on refund checks and to deposit such checks into his corporate banking accounts. Before Pope became a co-conspirator, Walters used friends as payees on the fraudulent property tax refunds. Once Pope entered the scheme, and Walters could use Pope’s corporate account, Walters increased the dollar amounts of the fraudulent checks from approximately $4,500 per check to nearly $40,000 per check. In 2007, Pope received two fraudulently obtained District of Columbia property tax refund checks from Walters after faxing a letter to Walters’s office requesting that refunds be mailed to his home.

During Pope’s sixteen years in the scheme, he received twenty-one fraudulently obtained District of Columbia property tax refund checks. He also received an additional $412,201.66 in proceeds from the scheme. In total, Pope received $1,586,406.26 through his participation in the scheme. Pope used portions of his proceeds to invest in a restaurant in Mississippi and to make mortgage and car payments.

“Today’s guilty plea exposes another layer of this audacious fraudulent scheme which robbed the District of Columbia of millions of dollars that could have been used to help people truly in need in our community,” said U.S. Attorney Taylor. “While the guilty plea marks a successful end to another chapter of this sad saga, we are by no means done. The ultimate goal is to bring each and every member of this scheme to justice.”

"Today's guilty plea illustrates that the FBI will continue to work with its law enforcement partners to identify every participant in this mammoth fraud scheme and hold them accountable for their actions," stated FBI Assistant Director in Charge Persichini.

The investigation has thus far resulted in guilty pleas from seven of Walters’s co-conspirators, including Pope; Walters’s brother (Richard Walters, 49); Walters’s nephew (Ricardo Walters, 33); Walter’s close friend (Connie Alexander, 52); Walters’s former banker at Bank of America (Walter Jones, 33); Walters’s personal shopper (Marilyn Yoon, 40); and the husband of Walters’s friend and mentor (Robert Steven, 55).

In announcing today’s guilty plea, U.S. Attorneys Taylor and Rosenstein, Assistant Director in Charge Persichini, D.C. Inspector General Willoughby, IRS Special Agent in Charge Martin, and Chief Financial Officer Gandhi commended the outstanding and dedicated team that has investigated this case and the entire OTR tax fraud scheme, including: FBI Special Agents Andrew Sekela, Julie Shields, Debra LaPrevotte, and Matthew Walsh, and Intelligence Analyst Jessica Pipher and Contract Forfeiture Investigator Jerry Simpson; IRS CID Special Agent Nicole Davis and TIGTA Special Agent Edward Bosak; Director of Internal Security Charles Fultz and Senior Investigator Donna Tolliver, of the OCFO Office of Integrity and Oversight; Special Agent Kevin Craddock and Tax Auditor James LeSane of OTR; D.C. OIG Special Agent Kerthalia Peavely; and HUD OIG Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kathleen Hatcher and Forensic Auditor Robert Fisher.

U.S. Attorney Taylor commended Paralegal Specialist Diane Hayes; Criminal Investigator Diane Eickman; Legal Assistants April Peeler, Lisa Robinson, and Michael Thompson; summer legal intern George Ingham; former Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey L.J. Carter; and Chief Steven Durham, Deputy Chief Howard Sklamberg, and the attorneys and entire staff of the Fraud & Public Corruption Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. U.S. Attorney Taylor also commended Information Technology Specialist Oliver John-Baptiste, Litigation Support Specialist Joseph Calvarese, and the entire staff of the Litigation Services Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Finally, U.S. Attorneys Taylor and Rosenstein commended Assistant U.S. Attorneys Timothy G. Lynch and David S. Johnson, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia; Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan Su and Deborah Johnston from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland; and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Diane Lucas and William Cowden from the Asset Forfeiture Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.