A Louisburg, Kansas woman has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Kansas City on tax evasion and wire fraud charges involving IRS deception and fraudulent covid-19 loan applications. Michelle O’Connor is accused of failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in income taxes and submitting dozens of fraudulent applications for federal pandemic relief loans. She received approximately $300,000 in covid-19 relief funds. About $115,000 was used to purchase cryptocurrency.
The indictment says O’Connor owned and operated a real estate company in the metro and owed $300,000 in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2015. The IRS audited her 2008 and 2009 returns in 2011 and found that she had falsely listed tens of thousands of dollars in personal expenses as charitable donations to a church she and her husband created, called the Church of Revelation and Love. The IRS added more than $40,000 to her tax bill as a result of the audit.
O’Connor is also accused of trying to obstruct those efforts by filing three false bankruptcy petitions, withdrawing over $250,000 using cashier’s checks, and using business accounts to cover personal expenses. She could face five years in prison for tax evasion and up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud.
