Jacqueline Kennedy, Tax and Unemployment Insurance Fraud, Illinois 2012

A suburban Chicago woman was sentenced to six years in federal prison for operating a federal income tax fraud scheme as well as one of the largest fictitious employer unemployment fraud schemes ever prosecuted nationwide.

CHICAGO ― Jacqueline Kennedy, 41, formerly of Country Club Hills, received the six-year prison term and was ordered to pay more than $4.8 million in restitution last Thursday by U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow.

Kennedy, who owned a south side tax preparation business, engaged in one scheme to falsely claim federal tax refunds and, together with 15 co-defendants, engaged in a related scheme using the identities of other individuals, including some of her tax service clients, to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars from state unemployment insurance agencies in Illinois, Indiana and four other states.

The defendant pleaded guilty in December to one count of making false claims for tax refunds, one count of wire fraud, and three counts of mail fraud. Kennedy owned and managed ATAP Financial Enterprises, Inc., ATAP Tax & Business Solutions, Inc., and ATAP Tax Services, Inc., (collectively ATAP), all tax preparation businesses located at one time at 1757 West 95th St., in Chicago.

Between January 2008 and April 2010, Kennedy prepared more than 200 false income tax returns by attaching false W-2 forms from fictitious entities to her clients’ tax returns to inflate their Earned Income Tax Credit.

Between February 2009 and December 2012, Kennedy and her co-defendants registered 97 fictitious companies they created with state unemployment agencies and then filed more than 900 false unemployment insurance claims for fictional employees who were purportedly terminated from the fictitious companies without fault.

The sentence was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; James Vanderberg, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations; James C. Lee, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division; Robert J. Holley, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Tony Gómez, Inspector-in-Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Chicago.

In total, Kennedy and co-defendants bilked state unemployment insurance agencies in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Oklahoma out of approximately $9.1 million, including nearly $6 million from the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

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