Worst Man in the World?

SAN DIEGO (CN) - A 70-year-old San Diegan stole the identities of dead children and used their names to hide his income from the IRS, federal prosecutors say.

A federal grand jury returned a 16-count superseding indictment against Lloyd Irving Taylor, who was arraigned Thursday.

Taylor has been locked up since April, when he was charged with three counts of false statements on passport applications.

The superseding indictment accuses him of aggravated identity theft, tax evasion, false statements to a financial institution, and corruptly impeding the IRS.

"The superseding indictment alleges that Taylor stole the identities of at least nine individuals, many of whom had died at an early age in the 1950s," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Taylor got the dead children's birth certificates, and used the information on them to establish aliases and get fraudulent passports and other ID, prosecutors said. He allegedly used the aliases to open bank accounts and transfer assets. He "opened numerous other financial accounts in the names of fictitious religious institutions that he controlled either in his name or in the name of one of the stolen identities so that he could frustrate attempts by the IRS to determine his tax liability," the U.S. attorney said.

Taylor has earned "significant income" by securities trading and investments, but hasn't filed or paid any taxes since 2003, prosecutors said in the statement.

Federal officials seized $1.6 million in gold coins from his storage locker.

A judge ordered him jailed pending trial because of his "international travel on his false passports, the millions of dollars he controlled through dozens of bank accounts, and his numerous false statements to banks in furtherance of his criminal activity," the U.S. attorney said.

If convicted of all charges, he faces up to 265 years in prison, and fines.

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