REGIONAL- A woman the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office identifies as currently living in Tower has been sentenced to 28 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay nearly $430,000 in restitution for crimes committed against more than two dozen former payroll clients and the IRS while she was living in the Twin Cities.
Despite the claims of the U.S. Attorney, the Timberjay has found no evidence that the woman, who has lived in Edina for years, ever lived in the Tower area, although she formerly owned a residence on Pike Bay. County tax records show that the woman involved, Jeana Lautigar, a.k.a. Jeana Lautigar-McGowan, was the owner of a property at 1236 Lautigar Rd., although it listed her mailing residence as Edina. The property claimed a relative homestead exemption, which allows for a tax benefit if a relative of the owner resides permanently at the property. Lautigar’s Facebook page, which was last updated in October 2024, shows she was born in Virginia and lives in Edina. The property in question was sold last December.
When asked about the discrepancy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office insisted that Lautigar resides in Tower but was unwilling to provide her address.
According to court documents, Lautigar, 58, owned and operated an accounting and payroll service headquartered in St. Louis Park, where she managed payroll for various small businesses.
To facilitate the payroll service, Lautigar was granted access to client bank accounts. On multiple occasions between 2016 and 2020, Lautigar embezzled funds from her clients’ bank accounts and used the money to cover personal expenses, or to pay back money she had previously embezzled from other clients. In total, she embezzled $344,813 from her clients over a period of five years.
Lautigar was a resident of Edina in 2018 when she filed false income tax returns in which she failed to report the embezzled income, resulting in a $84,746 tax loss to the United States.
Lautigar pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of engaging in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property and one count of filing a false income tax return. She was sentenced last week.