Date: Sept. 26, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Kansas City, MO — A Kansas City, Missouri, tax preparer was sentenced in federal court today for a nearly $1 million wire fraud scheme in which he filed federal income tax returns for his clients that contained false information. Ebens Louis-Loradin, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes to 20 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Louis-Loradin to pay $722,121 in restitution. On March 27, 2024, Louis-Loradin pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and 10 counts of aiding in the preparation of false tax returns. According to court documents, Louis-Loradin prepared and filed 154 fraudulent tax returns that inflated his clients’ refunds by a total of nearly $1 million and thereby boosted the fees he charged them. Louis-Loradin, who has been a tax preparer since 2012, admitted that he engaged in a scheme to defraud the IRS and obtain money by preparing and electronically filing federal tax returns containing false items over a seven-year period from 2013 to 2020. Louis-Loradin claimed items on his clients’ federal tax returns that his clients were not entitled to claim, including dependents, inflated income tax withholding amounts, credits for child and dependent care expenses, American opportunity credits, earned income credits, itemized deductions, and business losses. These false claims had the effect of reducing his clients’ taxable income and increasing his clients’ tax credit eligibility. Louis-Loradin’s fraud scheme resulted in a total loss of $953,873 to the United States. Many of his clients, who told investigators they weren’t aware of the false items he placed on their tax returns, have been paying back the Internal Revenue Service for the refund overpayments caused by Louis-Loradin’s fraud scheme. According to court documents, Louis-Loradin failed to file personal federal income tax returns for tax years 2016, 2017, and 2018. He also fraudulently utilized multiple identities, including those of children, in the commission of his fraud scheme. Specifically, Louis-Loradin utilized the identity of at least seven minors to claim them as dependents on various clients’ tax returns. According to court documents, Louis-Loradin was in Haiti when he was indicted in July 2021. He traveled to Florida in May 2023 and was arrested. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas P. Heberle. It was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
