Baton Rouge Concert Promoter and Restaurateur Sent to Federal Prison for Violations of Supervised Release Stemming from Federal Fraud and Tax Convictions

Previously, in 2017, Hammond was convicted of bank fraud, money laundering, and obstructing the due administration of the Internal Revenue Code.  Hammond’s convictions arose from two separate, but related, criminal schemes.  First, as Hammond admitted in connection with his guilty plea, he defrauded a local bank by submitting false documents in support of a loan application for a new restaurant that Hammond was attempting to open at the time, and after obtaining the bank’s money, Hammond caused a series of financial transactions intended to conceal and disguise the funds.  Meanwhile, Hammond had a significant unpaid tax liability with the Department of the Treasury—Internal Revenue Service, and the IRS was taking steps to collect what Hammond owed.  As Hammond admitted, he engaged in a series of acts intended to obstruct the IRS, including allowing a fictitious document to be filed in the 19^th Judicial District Court that purported to withdraw a tax lien that the IRS had properly filed against Hammond, and then engaging in a series of transactions that circumvented an IRS levy and enabled Hammond to obtain funds for promoting a concert on the campus of Southern University, which funds should have been paid to the IRS.

In August 2018, Hammond was sentenced to serve 12 months and one day in federal prison.  Hammond was ordered to pay approximately $258,000 in restitution and to forfeit an additional $213,656.12.  Significantly, the Court ordered Hammond to serve a three-year term of supervised release following his release from prison.  After serving his prison sentence, Hammond began serving his term of supervised release in August 2019.

At yesterday’s hearing, the Court found that Hammond had violated the conditions of his supervised release.  Specifically, the Court found that Hammond failed to timely report to his supervising probation officer his March 2021 arrest by the Baton Rouge Police Department, during which Hammond was stopped while allegedly driving more than 100 miles an hour, and which led to his arrest for DWI (second offense), reckless driving, and several other offenses.  The Court also found that Hammond had failed to comply with court-ordered substance abuse testing and treatment – that Hammond had failed to submit to court-ordered drug tests and that he had taken other steps intended to circumvent his required testing.

The original investigation was led by the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which received valuable assistance from the Internal Revenue Service’s Examination and Collection Divisions, and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Alan Stevens, who serves as Senior Litigation Counsel for the United States Attorney’s Office.