Derek Chauvin has admitted that he hid tens of thousands of dollars from the state.
Ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin who is serving a 22-year sentence for killing George Floyd pleaded guilty to tax evasion in Minnesota on Friday reported BBC. The man has admitted that he hid tens of thousands of dollars from the state.
According to a report by NBC, Chauvin pleaded guilty to two counts of tax evasion, entering the plea in a Minnesota court before Washington County Judge Sheridan Hawley. According to a spokesperson for the county’s prosecutor’s office, he was sentenced to 13 months in prison.
The killing of George Floyd in May 2020, an unarmed black man, led to mass protests across the United States. The murder was captured on video and sparked civil rights protests across the US.
Shortly after Floyd’s death, Chavin and his ex-wife, Kellie May Chauvin, were charged with tax crimes. BBC report says that she pleaded guilty to the same charges last month, and is expected to be sentenced to community service at a hearing in May. The former Minneapolis police officer entered his plea on Friday in a virtual hearing from a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona.
He failed to pay taxes on $464,433 of joint income from 2014 through 2019, including $95,000 he made working as an off-duty security officer.
Kelly Chauvin who worked as a real estate agent and operated a photography business filed for divorce after murder charges were announced.
Together they owed $37,868 to the state, which included unpaid taxes, interest and fees, officials told NBC.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper, officials began to suspect tax fraud after interviews with Chauvin’s father, an accountant who prepared his 2014-15 taxes.
Chauvin suggested they get help from the person “who we have used to handle for many years”, the newspaper reports.
Chauvin, who is white, pleaded guilty in December 2021 to violating the civil rights of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, during his May 2020 arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy a pack of cigarettes.
Chauvin is already serving a 22-and-a-half-year sentence after being convicted of state murder charges for Floyd’s death, which sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality across the United States.
Chauvin also pleaded guilty to violating the consitutional rights of a 14-year-old boy in a separate case.
In that 2017 incident, Chauvin held the handcuffed boy facedown on the ground and struck him on the head multiple times with a flashlight.
