Former NFL player faces Federal charges!

Freddie Mitchell is a former NFL wide receiver, playing a pedestrian 4 years with the Philadelphia Eagles.After his NFL career he bought and owned a Bar-B-Que restaurant in Lakeland, FL.that was run by his brother Tremaine Mitchell. After a year in business he closed the restaurant after being named in a suit for failure to make payments on the business. He officially lost the restaurant in September 2009 after a court ruling. In December 2009, Mitchell was arrested for failure to pay child support and was later released on $250,000 bail. He was also arrested once for receiving a package containing 7 pounds of marijuana, which was delivered to his business. Mitchell has had a tumultuous background that has taken a turn for the worst.

Mitchell, is currently facing federal tax fraud charges for allegedly recruiting professional athletes in a scam to get false tax returns from the IRS. Chameleon Enterprises was a company owned by Mitchell and was a part of the scam named in the indictment filed by the US attorney in Orlando, FL. The indictment stated that the false tax returns were filled electronically by Russ-Walls and Walls. This firm allegedly filed the returns for refunds ranging from $170,00 - $1.9 million and even attached false documents to help support the filings.

Mitchell was working with this firm and his role was to recruit professional athletes and get them to file their tax returns with Russ-Walls. Once they had an appointment with the athlete they would proclaim to be a trained tax preparer with vast experience in working with professional athletes. Once the athlete paid a down payment, Russ-Walls would file a false tax return with the athletes information, and would give Mitchell a percentage of the false refund while keeping the rest. This firm also filed false returns for Mitchell's company, eventually claiming more than $2 million in refunds.

If these allegation hold to be true, in this case, Mitchell was both knowingly committing an illegal action (federal tax fraud) but was unethical as well by misleading former athletes, some of which he may have known personally. The indictment is based on an athlete that goes by initials of A.G, who paid Mitchell $100,000 to have his return prepared and filed. A.G was under the impression that he would receive a return for around $1.2 million, but was never notified that a return was filed on his behalf, instead Russ-Walls was to receive $600,000 and Mitchell about $280,000 from the false refund.