A Sacramento County woman pleaded guilty on Thursday to filing nearly $6 million worth of false tax returns on behalf of herself and an associate, using fake social security numbers and claiming to have held jobs that did not exist.
Latasha Clarion Williamson, 37, falsely said she held jobs at Walmart, the video game maker Epic Games, a German chemical giant and other firms, using multiple Social Security numbers and listing her own address as the corporate headquarters, her plea agreement said.
She appeared in federal court in Sacramento wearing long braids and a blazer over baggy pants. She spoke quietly and responded mostly with one-word answers when U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta asked her questions about her plea.
“Guilty,” she repeated four times, as each of the counts of filing a false claim against the federal government was read aloud in court.
Prosecutors charged Williamson last month in the case, alleging that she filed claims worth about $5.6 million on her own behalf and another $203,039 for an associate. Total losses to the government were calculated at more than $8 million, although the four counts to which she pleaded guilty resulted in payouts of about $1.5 million to Williamson and the associate, the plea agreement said.
Prosecutors said that the scheme began in 2020, when Williamson filed a claim for herself as if she had worked for Walmart the year before. Williamson had been an employee of the retail giant, but she stopped working there in 2018,...
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