01/14/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/15/2025 07:31
Date: Jan. 14, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
NASHVILLE - A federal indictment unsealed today charges Jason Alexander Jerkins of Franklin, Tennessee, with wire fraud, money laundering and tax fraud, announced Acting United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Robert E. McGuire.
According to the indictment, Jerkins, a Certified Public Accountant, owned Jerkins Business Solutions ("JBS") which provided tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services, among other accounting and financial services, for individuals and businesses since 2015. JBS was a sole proprietorship, and Jerkins controlled its bank accounts. JBS had office locations in Fairview and Nashville, Tennessee.
To facilitate his scheme, between March 2020 and October 2024, Jerkins obtained and maintained bank account and online banking information of his clients at JBS. Using Intuit QuickBooks software, Jerkins would initiate wire transfers out of his clients' bank accounts and into bank accounts that he controlled or could access. Jerkins used Intuit QuickBooks so that these withdrawals appeared on clients' bank statements with descriptions including "Intuit," "Jerkins Business Sol," or "Jerkins Business Sale," which concealed the nature of these fraudulent transactions from his clients and made them appear as though they were for legitimate business purposes. Jerkins would initiate these withdrawals from his clients' accounts within days of initiating legitimate payroll or tax payments from his clients' accounts to make it appear as if the legitimate payments were split between multiple withdrawals by Intuit. Jerkins would then withdraw funds from his clients' accounts as if he were paying over business expenses owed by his clients, but instead of paying the expense owed by the business, Jerkins would deposit the funds into his own bank accounts or use the funds for his personal benefit. When clients confronted him about fraudulent withdrawals, Jerkins provided those clients with fraudulent documentation that made the withdrawals appear to be legitimate. And at least one time, Jerkins repaid a client the amount of a fraudulent withdrawal using funds from a second fraudulent withdrawal from another client's account. Throughout his scheme, Jerkins initiated over four hundred wire transfers totaling over $3,900,000, from his Intuit account to transfer the unauthorized client funds to one of his bank accounts. On at least one occasion, in September 2023, Jerkins used these stolen client funds to purchase residential real property.
Finally, as part of his plan to take his clients' money, Jerkins prepared and filed materially false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service for at least two clients. These tax returns reported false deductions and false business expenses, which the taxpayers did not incur, to the IRS.
If convicted, Jerkins faces up to twenty years in federal prison for the wire fraud count, up to ten years in federal prison for the money laundering count, and up to three years in federal prison for each count of preparing false tax returns. The United States is also seeking forfeiture of real property purchased with the proceeds of Jerkins' fraud scheme.
This case is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell T. Galloway is prosecuting the case.
A federal indictment is merely an allegation. The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.