John McAfee talks to the media at the Beacon Hotel where he is staying after arriving last night from Guatemala on December 13, 2012 in Miami Beach, Florida. McAfee is a “person of interest” in the fatal shooting of his neighbor in Belize and turned up in Guatemala after a month on the run in Belize.
Computer programmer, businessman and gadfly John McAfee was recently arrested in Spain and is in the process of being extradited to the United States after being indicted for tax evasion.
An indictment from June of this year was unsealed on Monday after McAfee was taken into custody which outlines 10 separate charges against the infamous internet entrepreneur.
The government alleges that McAfee made efforts to conceal “millions of dollars in income from various sources” over the five-year period.
Per the indictment, those funds were via:
(1) from 2014 through 2016, for speaking engagements; (2) from 2015 through 2016, for the rights to his life story for a documentary; (3) from 2016 through 2018, for work as a consultant; and (4) from 2017 through 2018, for promoting cryptocurrencies.
According to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, McAfee failed to file a tax return for the tax years 2014 through 2018 and took additional steps “to evade and defeat” paying taxes to the federal government.
The indictment claims that these additional steps included “directing the payment of his income to a bank account in the name of” another person, “purchasing real property” and an unspecified “vehicle” and then “titling, and causing the titling of” that property and vehicle in the other person’s name.
More specifically, the government claims that McAfee tried to trick the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by “dealing extensively in cryptocurrency” and “routing his income through cryptocurrency accounts in the name of” another person.
The government also claims he bought a “yacht” that was titled in another person’s name. None of the third-parties who allegedly helped the defendant are listed in the brief indictment.
McAfee was slapped with five counts of attempting to evade or defeat paying taxes under 26 U.S.C. §7201, which states: “Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony.”
McAfee was also indicted on five counts of failure to file a tax return–which is a separate misdemeanor offense located at 26 U.S.C. §7203.
The 74-year-old software mogul, who is akin to a household name because of the ubiquitous anti-virus software company that bears his name but is no longer formally affiliated with him, has had several prior run-ins with the law and his controversial Twitter posts and libertine-esque profile in general has often kept the software developer in the news for various other reasons.
If convicted, McAfee theoretically faces up to 30 years in prison as well as several million dollars in penalties. Such an extreme sentence, however, while technically possible, is unlikely due to federal sentencing guidelines and McAfee’s criminal history. Additionally, income tax evasion imprisonment sentences are frequently shortened by judges in various ways including suspension in lieu of supervised release and by allowing multiple sentences to run concurrently–at the same time.
McAfee is currently in custody in Spain and his extradition to the United States is pending.
Read the full indictment below:
Mcafee Unsealed Indictment by Law&Crime on Scribd
[image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images]