SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WTVF) — Spring Hill sisters Ketura and Consuela Oden were arrested by IRS Criminal Investigation agents and indicted on Tuesday with conspiracy to commit tax fraud and 12 counts of employment tax fraud.
According to the indictment, the Oden sisters withheld federal income taxes, Medicare taxes and Social Security taxes from their employees' paychecks, without paying those taxes over to the IRS.
The alleged amount of withheld employment taxes totaled $640,789.
The indictment focuses on the time period between February 2015 and February 2022, but Ketura Oden was first accused of pocketing withheld taxes from her employees' paychecks as early as 2006.
Ketura Oden first owned and operated a health care business called Complete Care Choice in Spring Hill.
After three collections actions from the IRS over the span of seven years, Ketura Oden was notified in 2014 that she would be recommended for civil injunction or criminal prosecution.
Two months later, in February 2015, Ketura opened Complete Care Choice under a new name, Complete Home Care Services of TN, Inc. (Complete Home Care), and registered her sister Consuela Oden as the owner.
Both women held that Complete Home Care provided different services than Complete Care Choice, despite having the same employees, clients, customers and vendors as before, and without ceasing previous business operations.
In January 2017, the IRS once again initiated a collection action against the Oden-owned company.
Consuela Oden didn't comply with a summons in January 2018 to provide records related to Complete Home Care, until a federal district court judge in the Middle District of Tennessee issued an order for her to show why she had not complied.
If convicted, both women could be sentenced to up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.
