A father and daughter pair from Broward County allegedly claimed the government owed them millions in tax refunds on their lottery winnings. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reportedly paid them $3.4 million before the agency realized they had never won the lottery.

Danielle Takeila Edmonson of Boynton and her father Kenneth Roger Edmonson of Oakland Park are both charged with mail fraud and lying on government filings. It is unclear if they have acquired the services of an attorney.

According to criminal complaint, Danielle Edmonson is accused of filing a series of fake tax returns in 2015, 2016, and 2017. She allegedly claimed an unspecified amount of lottery winnings in 2015 and convinced the IRS to pay her $239,700. She used the money to buy a BMW and make large cash withdrawals from the bank, records show.

In 2016, she purportedly filed a claim of over $80 million in returns for an alleged income of $141 million. This time the IRS sent her rejection letter stating that her demand had “no legal validity” and wasn’t “payable through any federal agency,” court documents show. Undeterred by the IRS’s response, Miss Edmonson allegedly made similar false claims in 2017 and got almost $2.5 million from the IRS.

Kenneth Edmonson purportedly ran a similar scheme in 2018 and got the IRS to pay him $750,000. IRS agents raided his home in March 2018, but that didn’t stop him from allegedly filing a second fake tax return soon after, court documents indicate.

When IRS agents raided Danielle Edmonson’s home in 2018, they found:

• A wish list of the amount of money she purportedly wanted to receive from the IRS via refund checks.
• A folder containing IRS correspondence notifying her of the penalties for filing fraudulent tax returns.
• A letter from the Treasury Department from 2017 related to her claims that stated: “These documents are worthless. Your demand has no legal validity and is not payable through any federal agency. Your scheme appears to be akin to a fraud.”

In court filings she wrote from jail in March 2019, Danielle Edmonson reportedly claimed that she’s an “aboriginal indigenous Moorish American national.” She demanded the government release her and pay her millions of dollars as restitution for her unjust imprisonment.

Sources say Moorish Sovereign Citizens are an extremist group that believes “African Americans constitute an elite class within American society with special rights and privileges that convey on them a sovereign immunity placing them beyond federal and state authority.”

Federal courts have repeatedly rejected claims of “sovereign immunity” made by citizens. If convicted, the Edmonsons face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count of mail fraud, and five years for each count of filing false claims.

South Florida Fraud Attorney

If you are involved in a fraud case, then you should hire an attorney. Contact Brian Silber, P.A. to set up a free initial consultation and work with one of South Florida’s most experienced fraud attorneys.

Source: 12.16.19 Dad and daughter got millions from IRS after claiming to win lottery, authorities say.pdf