Another Guilty Plea Likely in D.C. Tax Scam

Mastermind's Niece Due in Court

The woman accused of cashing some of the biggest checks in the D.C. tax scam and helping her aunt swindle the city out of almost $50 million is due in court today amid signs that a plea agreement has been reached.

After the aunt, Harriette Walters, pleaded guilty last month, Jayrece Turnbull was left as the only defendant still awaiting trial. Prosecutors had obtained guilty pleas from nine other defendants before Walters, the tax office employee who masterminded the scheme, pleaded guilty to federal charges Sept. 16.

Now it appears that Turnbull, 34, will admit a role in the massive embezzlement of the D.C. treasury, which she unwittingly helped bring to the attention of the FBI.

Late yesterday afternoon, federal prosecutors filed a criminal information against Turnbull -- a charging document that typically is prepared in advance of a guilty plea. A hearing before the judge in the case, Alexander Williams Jr., is scheduled for this afternoon at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt.

Turnbull was arrested in November 2007 and indicted in March. Deemed a flight risk by prosecutors, Turnbull, who is from Bowie, has been in custody since her arrest.

For nearly two decades, Walters issued fraudulent property tax refund checks and enlisted friends and relatives to cash them in exchange for a cut of the increasingly large payouts, prosecutors said.

The scheme had been going on for years when Walters recruited Turnbull in 2000, and she allegedly became an audacious participant, cashing numerous checks, including eight for $400,000 or more. In 2004, she amassed more than $7 million, prosecutors have said in court filings. During her participation in the scheme, more than $12 million in stolen tax receipts passed through accounts she controlled, prosecutors wrote.

The scheme began to unravel with a June 18, 2007, transaction at a SunTrust bank in Maryland. Turnbull deposited a $410,000 refund check into an account there and a week later wrote a $200,000 check on it in an effort to transfer money to another account at Bank of America, prosecutors said. But SunTrust challenged Turnbull's authority to make the transfer.

Instead of backing off, Turnbull insisted that she was entitled to the money. She had a lawyer draft a letter to the bank, and she and another co-conspirator allegedly forged documents purporting to prove her right to the money.

The bank stood its ground and contacted the FBI, touching off an investigation that led to a wave of firings at the District's Office of Tax and Revenue and a string of arrests in the District and in Maryland, where many of the bank transactions took place.

One defendant, Ricardo Walters, has been sentenced to a 6 1/2 -year prison term. The others, including Harriette Walters, are awaiting sentencing. Walters faces 15 to 18 years in prison. Charges against Diane Gustus, the other D.C. government employee charged in the case, were dropped last month after prosecutors concluded that they did not have enough evidence to tie her to the crimes.

In the charging document filed yesterday, prosecutors allege that Turnbull devised a scheme to defraud and that she received stolen property. Prosecutors said her participation in the scheme spanned about seven years, from 2000 until her arrest in November 2007. About $10 million in money, goods and property have been seized.

Turnbull's attorney, Michael T. CitaraManis of the Federal Public Defender's office, could not be reached to comment late yesterday.