Former District of Columbia Attorney Previously Found Guilty of $2 Million Investment Fraud Scheme Pleads Guilty to Not Filing Tax Return

A former attorney recently convicted of securities fraud by a jury in the District of Columbia, pleaded guilty today to failure to file an income tax return and pay taxes, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

Brynee Baylor pleaded guilty today to one count of willfully failing to timely file a 2010 individual income tax return and to pay taxes. She admitted to causing a tax loss of $79,000.

On April 30, 2019, the jury convicted Baylor of one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and five counts of first-degree fraud under District of Columbia law.

According to court documents and the evidence presented at trial, Baylor, a former partner in the D.C. law firm Baylor & Jackson PLLC, conspired with a Pennsylvania man and his company, known as the Milan Group, to recruit investors to a purported trading program. Investors were promised extremely large profits in a short time with little or no risk.

In 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Baylor and others for fraud in connection with the purported trading program.

Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 12.  Baylor faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison for the failure to file a tax return conviction, five years in prison for the conspiracy count, 20 years in prison for the securities fraud count, and 10 years in prison for each of the first-degree fraud counts. Baylor also faces a term of supervised release and monetary penalties.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman thanked the SEC for its invaluable assistance and commended special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who conducted the investigation, and Trial Attorneys Jeffrey McLellan and Eric Powers of the Tax Division, who are prosecuting the case.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found on the division’s website.