Man gets 4-year prison term for $12 million tax return scam

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A St. Louis-area man has been sentenced to four years in prison for a tax return scheme that netted nearly $900,000.

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Babatunde Olusegun Taiwo, who agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors in September.

Federal prosecutors said Taiwo, co-conspirator Kevin Williams and others obtained personal information from people, including through a data breach at a payroll company. The victims included school district employees in Alabama and Mississippi.

Taiwo and others used the information to file false tax returns with the IRS. Prosecutors said Taiwo and his co-conspirators filed more than 2,000 fraudulent tax returns that claimed more than $12 million in refunds, of which the IRS paid out about $890,000.

The money must be paid back in restitution.

Williams was previously sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.