Date: July 31, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Pensacola, FL — Wesner Jean-Pierre of Orlando, Florida, was sentenced to 26 months in federal prison after previously pleading guilty to charges of preparing false tax returns. The sentence was by Jason R. Coody, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida. “The United States and its citizens rely on the payment of taxes to defend our country and maintain its operations,” said U.S. Attorney Coody. “Efforts to steal from hardworking American taxpayers – here by a corrupt tax preparer – will result in swift and significant sanctions.” Between 2015 and 2019, Jean-Pierre, owner of WJP Financial Services, LLC., a tax preparation business in Pensacola, prepared and filed approximately 1,949 false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service for various clients. Jean-Pierre falsely represented the taxpayers’ income, deductions, credits, and the refund due, to steal funds from the American taxpayers for his gain. Jean-Pierre’s prison sentence will be followed by 1 year of supervised release and he was ordered to pay $830,840.00 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. “Clients place special trust in their tax preparers, who have a duty to prepare their clients’ returns accurately and in compliance with the law,” said Ronald A. Loecker, Special Agent in Charge of IRS CI’s Tampa Field Office. “Mr. Jean-Pierre is now paying the price for violating that trust for his own personal gain. This sentencing should serve as a warning to those tax preparers who choose to line their own pockets rather than do what’s best for their clients.” This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS CI). The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jeffrey M. Tharp. 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. 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.
