A Southeast beautician has agreed to turn evidence against his longtime friend and accused tax scam mastermind Harriette Walters, The Examiner has learned.
Samuel Earl Pope helped Walters launder $1.6 million in stolen bogus tax refunds through a beauty salon he ran, according to court documents.
In federal court today, he will plead guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud. He will also agree to testify against Walters, whom he met when she came to the salon to have her hair and nails done, according to court documents filed Monday.
Pope, a previously unknown figure in the record-setting $50 million corruption scandal, is yet another key witness against Walters. Court papers accuse him of being in on the scheme from its early days.
Walters became a regular at the Head to Toe Salon that Pope ran in the late 1980s, documents said. Pope and Walters became close friends. Pope also ran a car service and became Walters’ favorite chauffeur. She used him to get to and from work and on her lavish gambling trips to Atlantic City, N.J., court documents state.
Around May 1991, Pope told Walters he was worried about keeping his salon because the rent was raising.
“Having grown to trust Pope, Walters told Pope about a method she had for embezzling funds for the District of Columbia government,” court papers state.
Over the next decade-and-a-half, Pope helped Walters launder the bogus property tax refunds, court papers state.
Monday’s court papers introduce two new figures in the massive scandal. “Individuals Two and Three,” as they are identified in court papers, were also given tens of thousands in stolen money, and their addresses were used to cook up several more phony refunds.
The Walters scandal has scalded D.C. Chief Finance Officer Natwar Gandhi, and Monday’s filings raise more questions about management of the public’s purse. According to charging documents, Walters cooked up a phony tax credit in 2003. Gandhi’s $120 million automated tax system continued to issue the credit years later.Gandhi’s son works for the company that sold the city its tax software.
Pope is at least the seventh person to plead guilty in the Walters case since the scandal became public last November.
