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Former Kansas City police officer, DEA agent admits to filing fraudulent tax returns

Fraudulent tax returns related to payday loan scheme
Tax Season Begins
Posted at 4:14 PM, May 23, 2023
and last updated 2023-05-23 17:14:56-04

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, who was also a Kansas City police officer, admitted to filing a fraudulent income tax return.

Patrick Scot Witcher, 57, committed the fraud as part of a payday loan scheme.

Investigators found Witcher assisted five people from the Kansas City area in managing various payday lending enterprises, according to court documents.

Witcher filed the fraudulent tax returns that included more than $1 million in unreported income between 2016-2018. The money came from one of the payday enterprises.

Most of the operations of the payday loan enterprises took place in the Kansas City area, but they also operated on Native American reservations and outside of the United States.

Witcher pleaded guilty to one count of filing a false federal income tax return and faces up to three years in federal prison. He will be sentenced at a later date.