Matthew Keith, Wire Fraud, Louisiana 2009

BATON ROUGE, LA – A brazen scheme to defraud the State of Louisiana’s Motion Picture Industry Development Tax Credit Program has landed a local man in hot water. Matthew Keith, age 36, pled guilty yesterday before Chief United States District Court Judge Brian Jackson to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

According to court documents, Keith faces a sentence of up to five years imprisonment, three years of supervised release following imprisonment, and a fine of $250,000. The sentencing date has yet to be scheduled.

At today’s hearing, Keith admitted that he owned and operated DMG Holdings, LLC and Louisiana Film Finishers, LLC, companies that provided technical services for the production of motion pictures. Keith admitted to conspiring with others, including an individual identified only as D.G., to transfer $1,000,000 D.G. received from an investor through four separate film production companies.

These transfers created cancelled checks which D.G. later used as false documentation for $4,000,000 of motion picture productions.

The Louisiana Economic Development Office (LED) operated the Motion Picture Industry Development Tax Credit Program, which provided a 30% tax credit on qualified expenditures for the production of films in Louisiana. Between June 10, 2009 and March 31, 2010, D.G. applied for, and received, tax credits from the LED for various movies.

In total, $4,000,000 of the purported expenditures related to films was based upon the false expenditures created in the scheme described above. The tax credits issued by LED, based upon the false expenditures, totaled $1,200,000. Keith’s role in the conspiracy resulted in the receipt of improperly obtained tax credits totaling $300,000.

This investigation was conducted by the FBI and the Louisiana State Inspector General’s Office and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Frederick A. Menner, Jr.

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