“We Build the Wall” president pleads guilty to federal charges

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – Brian G. Kolfage, of Miramar Beach, Florida, pled guilty yesterday for crimes charged in the Northern District of Florida relating to the filing of his 2019 federal income taxes.

Jason R. Coody, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, announced the plea.

Kolfage entered a guilty plea to three federal charges related to filing false income tax returns for the tax year 2019.  With this plea, Kolfage admitted, under oath, that between January 2019 and July 2020, he engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States in relation to his 2019 federal income tax returns.

Kolfage admitted receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from multiple organizations during 2019, including We Build the Wall, Inc., which were deposited into his personal bank account, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida.

Kolfage failed to report this income to the Internal Revenue Service. Upon learning of an investigation into his federal income taxes, Kolfage filed amended tax returns for 2019 that were also false.

These amended tax returns continued to falsely fail to report income deriving directly from We Build the Wall and indirectly from We Build the Wall after being routed through other organizations in order to obfuscate where the money came from, said the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida.

Kolfage’s plea was entered in the District Court for the Southern District of New York along with a guilty plea to conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges filed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York for fraud related to donors of “We Build the Wall.”

Sentencing in this case is currently set for September 6, 2022, at 1:00 p.m., at the United States Courthouse in the Southern District of New York before the Honorable United States District Judge Analisa Torres.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys David L. Goldberg and Lazaro P. Fields.