FA Tax
Outcome
Festus Adenisimi, owner of FA Tax in Grand Prairie, Texas, sentenced to 57 months in federal prison and ordered with three co-conspirators to pay $31.1 million in combined restitution after the firm prepared fraudulent tax returns causing $7.5 million in IRS losses and Adenisimi separately obtained $760,415 in fraudulent PPP loans.
Details
FA Tax / Festus Adenisimi — $31M Multi-Defendant Tax and PPP Fraud, Texas (2020–2022)
Outcome: Four defendants—Festus Adenisimi (57 months), Sunshyne Ogungbemi (18 months), Chris Tijerina (15 months), and Cynthia Bradley (15 months)—sentenced to a combined 105 months federal prison and $31.1 million combined restitution.
Festus Adenisimi owned and operated FA Tax in Grand Prairie, Texas and orchestrated a scheme with three co-workers—Sunshyne Endurance Ogungbemi of Waxahachie, Ogungbemi of Waxahachie, Chris Mary Tijerina of Crandall, and Cynthia Bradley of Belleville, Illinois—to prepare fraudulent tax returns for clients that caused over $7.5 million in IRS losses. Adenisimi additionally obtained $760,415 in fraudulent COVID-19 PPP relief loans using false documentation.
All four defendants were sentenced: Adenisimi in March 2025, Ogungbemi and Tijerina in April 2025, and Bradley in June 2025. The case was investigated by the IRS Criminal Investigation Dallas Field Office and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marty Basu in the Northern District of Texas.
The $31.1 million combined restitution figure—approximately four times the $7.5M direct IRS loss—suggests the restitution calculation captured broader damages beyond the direct tax loss, potentially including penalties, interest, and consequential harms. The four-defendant structure demonstrates how a single tax preparation business can operate as a coordinated fraud enterprise with multiple employees each contributing to the scheme.
Primary Source: Four Tax Preparers Sentenced to Combined 105 Months in Federal Prison
How Crucible Prevents This
FA Tax's combined false-return and PPP fraud demonstrates how tax preparation firms can exploit pandemic programs across multiple vectors simultaneously. Crucible's cross-program consistency enforcement—requiring that payroll and income figures in PPP applications match filed tax returns— would flag the mismatch between Adenisimi's fraudulent PPP applications and his clients' actual tax situations. Organizational-level controls requiring consistent fraud-free practices from all preparers at a firm, not just the owner, would surface the multi-employee scheme.
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