Date: April 3, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Pensacola, FL — Timothy S. Gilbert of Milton, FL, was sentenced to three years in federal prison after having previously pled guilty to twenty-two counts of wire fraud, ten counts of money laundering, and four counts of tax evasion. Jason R. Coody, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida announced the sentence. “Abuse of trust, embezzlement, and tax evasion warrant significant criminal consequences,” said U.S. Attorney Coody. “This defendant’s years-long theft from his employer and his efforts to launder and conceal his fraud proceeds are both illegal and offensive to the hardworking Americans who pay their taxes to defend our country and maintain its operations. It is fitting and proper that he pay restitution, unpaid taxes, and investigative costs for his criminal conduct.” Court documents reveal while employed as a rehab manager for a local hospital and medical group, Gilbert used a corporate credit card to make unauthorized purchases of prepaid credit cards and gift cards. He would then convert funds from the fraudulently obtained cards using his personal PayPal, Stripe, and bank accounts to conceal his scheme, make personal purchases, and withdraw large amounts of cash to gamble at casinos. Gilbert concealed the credit card payments from his employer by circumventing company policies. Between 2019 and 2022, Gilbert stole and laundered over $607,000. “Devising a scheme to conceal income from the IRS is blatant criminal activity, especially when you abuse your position of trust and embezzle funds from a hospital that serves the community,” said IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Acting Special Agent in Charge Lani I. Rosado-Espinal. “Taxpayers who pay their fair share need to be reassured that IRS Criminal Investigation will continue to devote the resources needed to uncover these types of schemes which defraud the honest taxpayers.” In addition to serving three years in custody, Gilbert was ordered to pay over $607,000 in restitution to the victim hospital, over $160,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid taxes, over $38,000 to the Internal Revenue Service and the Pensacola Police Department for costs of prosecution, and $3,700 in special monetary assessments. This case resulted from a joint investigation by the IRS CI and the Pensacola Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alicia Forbes and Jessica Etherton prosecuted this case. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
