$1 Million Scheme Led To Country Club Tax Payment Shortfall: Feds

TWIN CITIES, MN — Acting United States Attorney Gregory G. Brooker this week announced the indictment of Julie Ann Lee, 53, former controller of the Town & Country Club in Saint Paul on four counts of wire fraud and six counts of filing false tax returns. Lee is expected to make her initial appearances in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis later this week.

According to the indictment, from 2008 through 2016, Lee was the controller of the Town & Country Club (TCC), a private golf club in Saint Paul. In her role, Lee was responsible for managing TCC’s finances and had authority to sign and issue checks on behalf of TCC as well as signing authority on TCC’s bank accounts, including a line of credit TCC had with Alliance Bank, according to a news release.

Lee used her position as controller to devise a scheme to embezzle more than $1 million from TCC over the course of eight years, authorities claim. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Minnesota Patch, click here to find your local Minnesota Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

According to the indictment, as part of her embezzlement scheme, Lee fraudulently issued herself more than 50 checks totaling more than $150,000 directly from TCC’s bank accounts. Lee also allegedly stole approximately $250,000 in cash from TCC, which she deposited into her personal bank account.

As part of the scheme, Lee also made payments on her personal credit cards directly from TCC bank accounts totaling approximately $600,000, according to federal investigators. Lee allegedly spent the funds she embezzled on things unrelated to TCC, including personal travel, home improvements and her mortgage, a 2013 Dodge Charger, a 2015 GMC Sierra K3500 pickup truck, a motorcycle, a recreational vehicle, and 81 acres of land in northern Minnesota.

According to the indictment, Lee attempted to conceal her embezzlement scheme and cover the shortage of money in TCC’s bank accounts by taking advances on TCC’s line of credit at Alliance Bank. As a result of Lee’s embezzlement, TCC was left without sufficient funds to make its quarterly payroll tax payments to the IRS, according to authorities.

In order to conceal the shortage of funds, Lee allegedly filed false quarterly payroll tax returns with the IRS understating TCC’s payroll tax liability. At times, Lee also filed TCC’s quarterly payroll tax returns late and made TCC’s quarterly tax payments late, which resulted in TCC paying more than $300,000 in interest and penalties to the IRS, authorities claim.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS, the United States Secret Service, and the Saint Paul Police Department.

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