Oladapo Olagbemi

Introduction

Oladapo Olagbemi, 72, a San Diego certified public accountant who managed the firm D.A.O. Accounting, Consulting, and Taxation, was sentenced in federal court on October 23, 2026 to 18 months in prison for preparing false federal tax returns containing $5 million in improper deductions and credits — returns that cost the U.S. Treasury approximately $1.5 million. Olagbemi pleaded guilty in June to four counts of aiding and assisting the preparation of false tax returns, admitting to multiple schemes across tax years 2019 through 2023 in which he helped clients obtain illegitimate refunds by claiming business expenses, charitable gifts and energy credits to which the taxpayers were not entitled. “He betrayed the trust of his clients,” U.S. District Judge Montenegro observed at the sentencing hearing — a rebuke sharpened by the government’s disclosure that Olagbemi kept filing false returns even after investigators came for him, and filed at least one false return after he had already pleaded guilty in the case.

Background Information

Olagbemi ran a working, revenue-producing practice: D.A.O. Accounting, Consulting, and Taxation generated almost $1.2 million in gross revenue in 2025 alone, even as the criminal case against its manager moved toward sentencing. The schemes he admitted spanned tax years 2019 to 2023 and followed a preparer’s classic playbook — manufactured business expenses, fabricated charitable contributions and improper energy credits stacked onto client returns to generate refunds the clients had not earned. The case file also records that authorities did not arrive unannounced: before the charges, Olagbemi was investigated by the California Board of Accountancy, interviewed about his questionable practices by both civil and criminal IRS agents, and had his office searched by federal agents as part of the investigation that produced the case. Each of those interventions, the sentencing release notes, failed to stop the conduct.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted and sentenced. Olagbemi pleaded guilty in June 2026 to four counts of aiding and assisting the preparation of false tax returns and was sentenced to 18 months in prison on October 23, 2026.

By his own guilty plea, Olagbemi prepared returns carrying $5 million in improper deductions and credits, producing $1.5 million in losses to the public fisc across the 2019-2023 tax years. The aggravating sequence the court weighed was the conduct after detection: he continued filing false returns after the California Board of Accountancy investigated him, after IRS civil and criminal agents interviewed him about his practices, and after federal agents physically searched his office — and then, most starkly, he filed at least one more false tax return after entering his guilty plea, while awaiting sentencing. “For years, Olagbemi abused his position as a trusted tax preparer by filing fraudulent returns designed to generate refunds to which his clients were not entitled,” said Darren Lian, Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation’s Los Angeles Field Office. “Even after being confronted by authorities and pleading guilty, he continued engaging in the same conduct.” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon added a prosecutorial epigram for the announcement: “Tax fraud may hide the truth for a moment, but justice always comes to collect.”

Public Reaction and Consequences

The sentence — 18 months in federal prison imposed by Judge Montenegro, under case number 26-CR-1982-RBM — was announced the day it was imposed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, with the judge’s “betrayed the trust of his clients” observation headlining the release. The professional consequences follow automatically for a licensed CPA: a felony conviction for aiding and assisting false tax returns, on top of the earlier Board of Accountancy investigation, ends the ability to practice with representation to clients intact, and the clients whose returns carried the fabricated deductions face their own exposure to IRS examination and liability. The government’s release does not state whether restitution was ordered or whether the clients were charged; the record as announced is the preparer’s plea, the $5 million in falsified deductions, the $1.5 million loss, and the prison term.

Current Status

Olagbemi, 72, is beginning an 18-month federal prison sentence imposed October 23, 2026, after his June 2026 guilty plea to four counts of aiding and assisting the preparation of false tax returns. The plea and sentence are final judgments; the release does not indicate an appeal. His practice’s fate — whether D.A.O. Accounting, Consulting, and Taxation continues operating — was not addressed in the announcement, and no public statement from Olagbemi or his defense appears in the government’s account.

Impact on Their Career/Life

For a 72-year-old accountant, an 18-month federal term is functionally the end of a career built over decades: the conviction, the earlier state board investigation and the IRS-CI case together foreclose the credentialed practice he was still running at $1.2 million a year in gross revenue in 2025. The case’s sharpest lesson, as the government framed it, is the futility of the conduct that extended it — three escalating official interventions and even a guilty plea did not stop the false filings, and the filing that came after the plea was the fact the sentencing court heard alongside everything else. The clients who bought illegitimate refunds with fabricated charitable gifts and energy credits are left holding returns the IRS has been alerted to, a collateral consequence the preparer’s sentence does not absorb.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California, “Tax Preparer Sentenced in $5 Million Tax Fraud,” October 23, 2026 — source