Christian County Jail inmate sentenced for tax fraud

A Christian County Jail inmate in Ozark was sentenced for his role in a conspiracy to file fraudulent tax returns while he was incarcerated and awaiting sentence on another federal conviction.

John Sedersten, 40, was sentenced to six years and six months in prison with a three-year term of supervised release, according to a news release from the office of Tammy Dickinson, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Sedersten pleaded guilty in April to leading a conspiracy to submit false claims totaling $373,372 to the IRS. The crime is his fifth federal conviction.

When he committed the tax fraud scheme, Sedersten was in jail serving a five-year sentence for walking away from a halfway house. He was at the halfway house for aggravated identity theft. He also has a pair of federal convictions related to a counterfeit check-cashing scheme and an earlier conviction for creating counterfeit checks in Nebraska, according to the release.

To accomplish the latest scheme, Sedersten and at least eight co-conspirators filed false federal income tax returns using wages not received, federal income tax withholdings that had not been withheld and false business expenses.

Most of the conspirators claimed wages from JDS Enterprises, a company registered to Sedersten, according to the release.