CHICAGO — A man who proclaimed himself the "grand sheik" of a Moorish temple is facing six years in prison for defrauding the Internal Revenue Service out of more than $3.2 million, according to prosecutors.
Marcel Walton, 47, started the fraud in 2010, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Walton told potential recruits — including those who were elderly and homeless — that they could join his branch of the Moorish Science Temple of America to receive tax refunds from the United States. He'd then falsify their tax records and his own to get larger refunds from the IRS.
Walton told the recruits Moors had discovered America and the United States and they were entitled to tax refunds from the U.S. government because it uses Moorish lands, according to prosecutors.
Walton would prepare or help prepare trust and estate tax returns with false information, according to prosecutors. He told members of the temple to pay him 10 percent of the money they received through refunds from the IRS due to the falsified returns.
Nearly 50 returns seeking a total of more than $15 million were filed by at least 17 people as part of the plan, according to prosecutors. Those people ended up getting more than $3.2 million through their requests.
Walton was given refunds of more than $300,000 by the IRS by filing three falsified tax returns, and members of the temple also paid him, according to prosecutors. One member gave Walton $90,000 from the $900,000 he or she received from IRS refunds in 2010.
Walton pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year. He was sentenced to 68 months in federal prison on Friday.
