Mooresboro, North Carolina, Woman Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion

Columbia, South Carolina –------- United States Attorney Beth Drake announced today that Kelly Sue Reynolds, age 52, of Mooresboro, North Carolina, has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for tax evasion.  Reynolds was sentenced by District Judge Timothy M. Cain in Anderson, South Carolina, who further ordered that upon her release from prison Reynolds is to serve a term of three years supervised release.  Additionally, she is to make restitution totaling $556,760.03.

Assistant United States Attorney David C. Stephens of Greenville prosecuted the case.  At the guilty plea he advised the court of the following facts.  Reynolds was the bookkeeper for a firm located in Cherokee County, South Carolina.  As part of her duties Reynolds paid bills for the firm, including the payment of various Federal Taxes.  In 2014 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) did an audit of the firm that Reynolds worked for due to the fact that certain taxes had not been paid.  During the course of the audit Reynolds admitted that over a five year period she had embezzled $439,459.97 from her employer.  She further stated that she had covered up the embezzlement by falsifying the books, showing that she had paid bills which she had in fact not paid.  Included in the unpaid bills were the missing taxes which started the investigation.  It was further determined that Reynolds had not filed personal tax returns during those years that she was embezzling funds and that based on her salary and the money she stole she owed the IRS $117,300.06 in personal income taxes.  US Attorney Drake explained that income taxes are due both on illegally obtained funds as well as those legitimately earned.

U.S. Attorney Drake commended the IRS for their dedicated work on this and all of the cases they investigate in South Carolina each year.

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