SAN DIEGO (CN) - A federal jury on Monday convicted a 71-year-old tax attorney of 19 counts, including tax evasion and aggravated identity theft, involving creating bank accounts in the names of dead children and fake churches.
After a weeklong trial, the jury deliberated for just 30 minutes before convicting Lloyd Irving Taylor, of San Diego, of all 19 counts against him, including aggravated identity theft, false statements to a financial institution, tax evasion, corruptly endeavoring to impair or impede the IRS and making false statements on United States passport applications, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Taylor, who also is a CPA, has been in jail since he was arrested in April 2013.
Prosecutors claimed at trial that Taylor stole the identities of dead children and used them as aliases to get fraudulent passports and other ID documents. He used the passports and documents to hide his income from the IRS and to buy gold coins, which he also did to duck taxes.
He also formed more than a dozen fraudulent churches and opened 31 bank accounts in their names, again to duck taxes.
Witnesses at trial included the brother of one of the dead children, and a blind elderly woman whose Social Security number Taylor stole. Prosecutors also showed the jury $1.6 million in gold coins that Taylor had stashed in a locker.
Prosecutors said Taylor filed a federal tax return in just seven of his 42 years of work.
He could be sentenced to more than 50 years in prison.
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