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Press Release

Bookkeeper Pleads Guilty To Failing To Declare More Than $700,000 In Stolen Money On Tax Return. Admits To Stealing Over Five Million from New Orleans Law Firm and Real Estate Company

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – U.S. Attorney Peter G. Strasser announced today that PEGGY NAGELE, age 65 of Thibodeaux, Louisiana pleaded guilty January 24, 2019 to a one count bill of information, charging her with  violating Title 26, United States Code, Section 7206, making false statements on an income tax return.

The bill of information, filed in November 2018, charged NAGELE with failing to declare on her 2011 Federal tax form 1040 more than $727,847.80 in funds she had stolen. NAGELE was employed as a bookkeeper with Law Firm A, a New Orleans law firm.  In documents filed in open court in connection with her guilty plea. NAGELE admitted to theft of $5,083,601 from Firm “A” and Business “A”, a real estate management company.  She admitted to failing to declare $727,847 in illicit income on her 2011 federal income tax return, as charged in the Bill of Information.

NAGELE further admitted to having unfettered access to both entities checkbooks and financial assets.  She wrote checks to herself from operating accounts at Firm “A”.  She disguised her thefts by making the checks payable to routine vendors, or simply did not record the checks in the check register.  The checks were then deposited into either Mortgage Lending Group, a business NAGELE and her family controlled or Nagele Corporation, another business controlled by the defendant.

The maximum penalty NAGELE faces is 3 years incarceration, a $250,000 fine, the cost of the investigation, as well as restitution to the IRS.  NAGELE is set for sentencing May 2, 2019.

U.S. Attorney Strasser praised the work of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division for their thorough investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Carter K.D. Guice Jr.

 

Updated February 14, 2019

Topic
Financial Fraud