Womack: Feds limit access to key documents

Kansas City businesswoman Cheryl Womack, who was indicted last December on tax-related charges, has filed a request to delay her change-of-plea hearing originally scheduled for Wednesday.

At issue is the Tax Information Exchange Agreement application, which acts almost like a search warrant and enables the government to obtain foreign-based documents and bank records in criminal and civil tax investigations.

The 10-count indictment alleges that she opened at least 19 bank accounts and organized a series of trusts in the Cayman Islands that concealed portions of her income from the Internal Revenue Service. Womack is charged with one count of attempting to interfere with the administration of IRS laws and nine counts of making false statements to a government agency. The indictment contains no formal tax fraud or tax evasion charges.

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Womack’s lawyers — Cynthia Cordes and Jeff Jensen of Husch Blackwell LLP — previously filed documents with the court seeking a delay because the government had not yet produced those TIEA materials.

In Monday’s filing, they accuse the government of intentionally restricting access to those documents in an effort to “insulate from scrutiny the illegal execution” of the TIEA. The information contained therein is “both favorable to Ms. Womack and material to the issue of guilt or punishment,” they wrote in the motion.

Womack has pleaded not guilty to a 10-count indictment, but her lawyers have filed documents with the U.S. District Court in Kansas City indicating a change of plea. Monday’s filing says that plea will be “limited” and “has nothing to do with tax evasion.”