Two pieces of courtroom action to keep track of from today. more ›

Via NBCWashington.com, we're sent to this link, which shows luxury items currently up for bid from a Texas auction house that is working with the U.S. Marshals Service to move all of infamous D.C. government embezzler Harriette Walters' ill-gotten luxury goods. more ›

It's a breaking news kinda Wednesday, apparently. As best we can tell, Marc Steiner was actually the first person to report that embattled Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has agreed to resign as part of a plea agreement reached with state prosecutors. The AP has since confirmed the news, noting that the mayor's resignation comes shortly after she entered an Alford plea today on a perjury charge. Dixon was convicted last month of embezzling gift cards that were supposed to go to needy Baltimore residents. The AP says the mayor's resignation is effective Feb. 4. more ›

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Harriette Walters, the ringleader behind a massive, two-decade-long, $50 million embezzlement scheme run from the inside of the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, has been sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison today. more ›

D.C. Wire is reporting that Yusuf Acar, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer employee who was arrested by the FBI in March for allegedly running an elaborate kickback and bribery scheme, is in talks with prosecutors about a potential plea deal. An Aug. 3 hearing is now set on the progress of the plea agreement for Acar. Another city employee, Farruk Awan, was also arrested in the case, along with businessman Sushil Bansal. more ›

The Post takes a look at some court papers filed by the attorney for Office of Tax and Revenue embezzler Harriette Walters, and finds that her legal team is arguing for leniency during sentencing by playing the "she had a rough childhood" card. The lawyer wrote that Walters stole the money so that she could give some of it away, which made her feel better about herself.

Tabackman attributed her father's "central role as the family's gift giver" as the "source of her documented practice of giving away extraordinary sums." more ›

With news today that the 11th Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement scheme co-conspirator has received her prison sentence, all we have left in the case is to await the sentencing of mastermind Harriette Walters. Connie Alexander, Walters' gambling friend who was one of the first people to come forward to cooperate with the authorities in the wake of the scandal, was sentenced to almost four years in prison by U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. yesterday, the Post reports. All 12 indicted members of the $50 million conspiracy have pleaded guilty, and the 11 who have already been sentenced received prison time ranging from one year up to six and a half years. You can be sure that Walters will receive the longest sentence of all 12. She's scheduled to be sentenced in June. more ›

Del Quentin Wilber files yet another sentencing story in the ongoing Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement court proceedings. This time, it's Alethia Grooms, 53, close friend of Harriette Walters and early participant in the $50 million scam. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan sentenced Grooms to just over 3 years in prison today, in addition to restitution in the amount of nearly $651,000. Best tidbit from the courtroom: '[The judge] noted that Grooms received the scheme's first and last fraudulent refund checks in the 18-year scam. "She was there from day one until the last day," Sullivan said. "She was not a minor" player.' Today's sentencing brings the total to nine our of the 11 people who have pleaded guilty in the case so far. Harriette Walters is scheduled to be sentenced in June. more ›

It's a been a while since we've had any more jail sentences to report in the massive Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement case. WaPo brings us this one today: Samuel Earl Pope, 61, the former owner of the Head to Toe Salon in Southwest, was sentenced today to four years and three months in prison for his role in the scheme. Pope, who was one of the earlier members of the Harriette Walters-led bunch o' thieves, was also ordered to pay $1,586,406 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. BTW, Harriette Walters herself is scheduled to be sentenced in June. more ›

WaPo's David Nakamura has the word on the latest D.C. embezzlement scheme -- and whaddya know, they just keep getting rosier! In this most recent case, a mother and daughter duo from Bowie -- contracted in 2003 to manage a city-backed program responsible for finding employment and paying blind people -- were indicted yesterday on charges that they stole $281,000 which was supposed to go into said sight-impaired folks' pockets and pensions. According to the indictment, the two would take revenues which were slated to feed into the blind employees' retirement accounts and simply write checks to their own personal accounts -- for good measure, the city also terminated their management company's contract after they failed to pay taxes or report accurate accounting records. (Yup, that combination of actions will probably get you caught, even if it is five years after the fact.) The offending pair, 70 and 51 years old respectively, are facing up to ten years in the pokey and some hefty fines for actually engaging in a certain idiom which I've had to try really, really, really hard not to use here. more ›

More OCTO updates! more ›

The Post reported earlier that a second D.C. government employee has been arrested in the ongoing federal bribery and embezzlement case involving the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer. Farruk Awan, 37, was arrested this morning on charges of conspiring to commit bribery and launder money. Awan is the third person to be arrested in the case, after OCTO employee Yusuf Acar and businessman Sushil Bansal. He's accused of receiving bribes from Bansal in exchange for approving Bansal's company's employees to work at the technology office, among other charges. more ›

Looks like the cash in the pajamas strategy paid off for federal prosecutors today, although it turns out the money was actually found in some pants, which makes the whole thing slightly less funny. Accused D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer embezzlement scheme mastermind Yusuf Acar has been ordered held without bail by a U.S. District Court judge, the Post reports. Reporter Del Quentin Wilber says that at today's hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola called the evidence against Acar "overwhelming." Prosecutors also reiterated that when Acar was arrested, FBI agents found about $70,000 in cash in his house. But they clarified that the $4,500 they originally said was discovered in the pajamas Acar was wearing at the time of his arrest was actually found in Acar's pants -- so, he wasn't wearing those pants? It's a little unclear. more ›

The Post reported this afternoon that one more sentence has been handed down in the Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement case. Walter R. Jones Jr., 34, the former Bank of America assistant branch manager who helped Harriette Walters deposit a total of 61 checks totaling almost $18 million, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison today. Jones received approximately $360,000 from Walters for his participation in the scheme, a relatively small sum compared to his cohorts, who all together stole at least $50 million from District taxpayers. By all accounts Jones has been contrite and cooperative since his arrest and subsequent guilty plea, but he received a sentence roughly in the middle of the federal sentencing guidelines. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. noted in his decision that were it not for Jones and his position at Bank of America, "the scheme would not have continued for so long." more ›

D.C. Wire has a fantastic tidbit from a series of internal Office of Tax and Revenue emails between District CFO Natwar Gandhi and embezzler of $50 million Harriette Walters. The emails, written in April of 2007, about seven months before the scandal broke, came about after Gandhi sent out an announcement to his employees letting them know that had decided not to accept an offer to become Amtrak’s CFO. Walters replied to Gandhi's staff-wide email with a brown-nosing note full of bad grammar: “Sir, I would like to say thank you for keeping us inform [sic] of a decision that would have impacted the employees within the CFO Cluster. I appreciate that you respected us to provide follow up to the recent news reports that we read and heard over the pat [sic] week. Thank You!” Gandhi then wrote back to Walters: “Thank you. Keep up the good work.” more ›

Add one more to the growing list of folks involved in the massive Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement scandal who have been sentenced to prison time. Marilyn Yoon, the Neiman Marcus saleswoman who was Harriette Walters' personal shopper, was sentenced yesterday to one year in jail. Yoon pleaded guilty to one charge of possession of property obtained by fraud, and also agreed to forfeit her home. The U.S. attorney's office said that Yoon should be credited with coming forward right away and expressing regret, and recommended the relatively lenient 12-month sentence.
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Two more sentences have been handed down in the epic story of the Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement case. The Post reports that Patricia Steven, 73, has been sentenced to five years and two months in prison for her role in the scam, while her estranged husband, Robert, 55, got three years and 10 months. Patricia Steven was a friend of Harriette Walters, and became involved in the embezzlement ring as early as 1990. Robert Steven appears to have received a lighter sentence due to his cooperation with prosecutors and claim that he was misled by his wife about where the money was coming from. The Stevens helped steal about $8 million of the roughly $50 million believed to have been taken in the Walters scam. more ›

From the Post, we learn that Richard Walters, younger brother of Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement mastermind Harriette Walters, has been sentenced to four years and three months in prison for his role in the scheme. Richard Walters pleaded guilty in May to personally helping his sister steal $4.9 million of the over $50 million she stole altogether. more ›

As expected, Harriette Walters entered a plea of guilty today, admitting to her role as the head of an elaborate scheme that pilfered almost $50 million from District of Columbia taxpayers. more ›

Big scoop for the Examiner: Harriette Walters, the alleged mastermind behind the enormous Office of Tax and Revenue embezzlement scandal, will plead guilty. Walters is charged with heading up an elaborate scheme that resulted in $48 million worth of phony property-tax refunds. Nearly all of the eleven other people charged for their involvement in the scam have already pleaded guilty and presumably agreed to testify against Walters, had she gone forward with a trial. more ›