War veteran indicted alongside Steve Bannon in fraud case faces new federal charges in Florida

A triple amputee war veteran who was indicted last year along with Steve Bannon and two others, in an alleged scheme to defraud donors to a crowdfunding effort to build a private US-Mexico border wall, was indicted Thursday for filing false information on his 2019 federal income tax returns, the Justice Department announced.

Brian Kolfage, the local president of “We Build the Wall,” was accused by the acting US Attorney for the Northern District of Florida of 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.

Prosecutors say Kolfage allegedly failed to report this income to the IRS.

Kolfage will make his initial appearance on this indictment on May 27 at the US Courthouse in Pensacola, Florida. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment.

CNN has reached to Kolfage’s attorney for comment.

Kolfage, of Miramar Beach, Florida, is also facing a separate federal indictment out of the Southern District of New York for fraud and money laundering-related offenses.

New York federal prosecutors charged Kolfage, Bannon and two others last August with defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting then-President Donald Trump’s border wall.

According to the federal indictment, the men conspired to profit off the wall-building effort, funneling money to themselves through sham nonprofits and shell corporations even as they publicly insisted every dollar donated would go to constructing a border wall.

Bannon served as Trump’s chief strategist. In his final hours in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, relieving the former White House staffer of the series of charges brought against him by New York federal prosecutors.