03 Feb Indiana casino exec and previous Republican lawmaker face newer tax fraud charges
a federal huge jury slapped an Indiana casino professional with added charges Tuesday for their alleged role in a scheme to funnel casino finances into an ex-state senator's were unsuccessful strategy for Congress.
John Keeler had been experiencing four federal prices for allegedly working with out-of-state governmental consultants to hire straw donors as soon as the latest expenses happened to be unveiled this week. Those straw donors funded previous county Republican Sen. Brent Waltz's congressional strategy in 2015. They were next refunded with resources from Keeler's casino organization brand new Centaur LLC, based on national prosecutors.
In a 2016 business taxation return for brand new Centaur's father or mother providers Centaur Holdings, Keeler listed a $41,000 team payment towards out-of-state governmental experts as a deductible expenditure. He additionally revised a corporate tax return from 2015 to feature write-offs for $79,500 in organization money into specialists.
But bodies believe those payments were not allowable expenditures anyway. They think they certainly were funds the experts routed into Waltz's campaign coffers through straw donors, which could cause them to become political contributions. Promotion efforts cannot be indexed as a company expense under national laws.
The fall of casino heavyweights
Keeler, legal counsel and previous Republican person in the Indiana quarters of associates, has actually used major jobs when you look at the state's casino sector. After brand new Centaur LLC was actually marketed for $1.7 billion to Las Vegas-based Caesars activity in 2018, he signed up with causes with another Indiana casino icon, pole Ratcliff, to begin Spectacle enjoyment.