The former Minneapolis cop accused of killing George Floyd has also been charged with multiple tax evasion felonies, Minnesota prosecutors announced Wednesday. Derek Chauvin and his wife Kellie Chauvin are accused of failing to file individual tax returns from 2016 to 2019 and "fraudulently filing tax returns from 2014 to 2019," Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said in a news release. Prosecutors also accused the Chauvins of knowing “their obligation to file state income tax returns” from “multiple correspondences sent in 2019 by the department.”
"When you fail to fulfill the basic obligation to file and pay taxes, you are taking money from the pockets of citizens of Minnesota,” Orput said. “Our office has and will continue to file these charges when presented. Whether you are a prosecutor or police officer, or you are doctor or a realtor, no one is above the law."
The Chauvins were each charged with nine felony counts, including underreporting more than $464,000 in income, with interest and penalties bringing in another $37,868, according to the Star Tribune. Kellie Chauvin, a real estate agent and owner of a photography business, told investigators filing returns "got away" from her, the newspaper reported. When she called her husband in jail June 26 to tell him their home had been searched and she was meeting with someone to help fix the tax issues, Derek Chavin suggested keeping “who we have used to handle for many years.”
In turn, she said: “Yeah, well, we don’t want to get your dad involved, because he will just be mad at me, I mean us, not doing them for years.”
The couple is apparently going through a divorce, which Kellie Chauvin’s attorney sought to be sealed, citing “constant harassment from the public” and hacked financial and Social Security information, according to the Star Tribune. “The circumstances surrounding Respondent’s incarceration has resulted in rage and violence throughout the community directed at both Petitioner and Respondent,” the attorney said in the filing.
Derek Chauvin is accused of killing Floyd on May 25 when Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes while two other officers kneeled on Floyd's back and legs. Former officers Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao, who protected his peers by keeping bystanders at bay, have all been charged in Floyd's death and a $1 million bail has been set for them, CNBC reported last month.
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