A former IRS Employee was charged in Utah Federal Court for allegedly attempting to steal $2.1 million in tax credits, ExxonMobil by embezzling the funds using a taxpayer database to which he had access.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that a former IRS account management worker Rodney Quinn Rupe received a $2,100,377 check from the U.S. Treasury Department in January after diverting Exxon tax credits to an organization he founded, then attempted to money the check at several credit unions over the following two months.
Rupe, a 46-year-old from Syracuse, Utah, is charged with wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud and theft of presidency property in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
He is scheduled to make his first appearance in that court on July 3. The case was highlighted on Thursday by legal news website Court Guard.
Rupe worked on the IRS service center in Ogden, Utahin 2021 when he began the diversionary tactic, in line with an indictment filed Wednesday.
As a part of his duties, Rupe was “authorized to reconcile taxes, credits, penalties and interest on certain taxpayer accounts in an IRS computer database,” the indictment states.
Rupe accessed Exxon's taxpayer account through the IRS database starting in April 2021 and accessed the database three months later “to assign a newly created Employer Identification Number (“EIN”) to an entity created and controlled by Rupe, Ex Xo Exteriors Ltd.,” the indictment states.
In April 2022, the indictment alleges, Rupe accessed a database to transfer $2.02 million in tax credits from the taxpayer account of oil and gas giant Exxon to the taxpayer account of Ex Xo Exteriors Ltd., the indictment says.
More than a yr later, in August 2023, Rupe “accessed an IRS database to transfer the diverted tax credits from one tax year to another,” the indictment says.
A month later, he allegedly applied those tax credits to Ex Xo Exterior's 2019 tax account, leading to the IRS issuing Ex Xo Exterior a $2.1 million refund in the shape of a tax office check, in line with the indictment.
He then attempted to money the check at several America First Credit Union branches.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City, which is prosecuting the case, and Rupe's defense attorney didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
A spokeswoman for Exxon Mobile declined to comment on the fees.
A spokesman for the IRS and a spokesman for America First Credit Union didn’t immediately comment.
The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General for Tax Administration, which investigated Rupe, said in an email to CNBC: “TIGTA does not comment on ongoing investigations or those pending prosecution by the Department of Justice.”
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