NEWS RELEASE

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

BETH PHILLIPS

Contact Don Ledford, Public Affairs ● (816) 426-4220 ● 400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510 ● Kansas City, MO 64106

www.usdoj.gov../index.html

APRIL14, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEDALIA MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO TAX EVASION

            KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Sedalia, Mo., man pleaded guilty in federal court today to tax evasion.

            Rickie Lee Keele, 53, of Sedalia, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Greg Kays this afternoon to a federal information that charges him with five counts of tax evasion.

            Keele, who owns several rental properties and is self-employed doing odd jobs and maintenance work, filed income tax returns but failed to report some of his income during the tax years from 2003 to 2007. This caused Keele to avoid paying a total of $48,405 in taxes owed.

            Keele admitted that he only reported income from his handyman business and one of his rental properties. Keele kept the money he received from his handyman business and rental income in cash so he could conceal it from the Internal Revenue Service.

            Keele also admitted that he used money obtained from his rental properties to structure the purchase of a house. The structuring involved purchasing cashier’s checks in denominations under $3,000 in multiple names in order to avoid federal reporting requirements. This property was seized at the beginning of the investigation.

            This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Curt Bohling. It was investigated by the IRS-Criminal Investigation.

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