Disgraced former police officer Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty to tax evasion in Minnesota on Friday, admitting he hid tens of thousands of state dollars.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of tax evasion and pleaded guilty in a Minnesota court before Washington County Judge Sheridan Hawley.

The former Minneapolis police officer is already behind bars, having been convicted of killing George Floyd on May 25, 2020, a murder that was captured on video and sparked a summer of civil rights protests across the United States. Joined.

Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin addresses court as a judge presides over Chauvin’s sentencing on June 25, 2021, at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis.court television

Chauvin and his ex-wife, Kellie May Chauvin, who also goes by Kellie Thao and Kellie Xiong, were charged in the prosecution case shortly after Floyd’s murder.

They were charged with defrauding the state of Minnesota by allegedly failing to pay taxes on $464,433 of joint income from 2014 through 2019, including $95,000 he earned working as an off-duty security officer, authorities said.

She was a real estate agent at the time and also operated a photography business. Together they owed $37,868 to the state, which included unpaid taxes, interest and fees, authorities said.

Chauvin’s ex-wife, who now lives in Wisconsin, pleaded guilty Feb. 24 to two counts of aiding and abetting failure to file taxes. Her plea agreement required three years of probation and restitution of $37,868, with no more than 45 days of community service. Hawley said that she will be sentenced on May 12.

The tax investigation began in June 2020, after the Minnesota Department of Revenue received information about suspicious filings by Derek Chauvin. The agency launched a review and later opened an investigation.

The investigation found that the Chauvins did not file state tax returns for 2016, 2017, or 2018, and did not report all of their income for 2014 and 2015. When tax returns for 2016 through 2019 were filed in June 2020, the Chauvins did not report Neither did all of his income in those years, the complaints said.

Chauvin, 46, is the white police officer seen in the video kneeling on the neck of Floyd, who is black, for nine and a half minutes in the early summer of 2020 when the victim said he couldn’t breathe and finally went limp.

Nearly a year later, a Minneapolis jury convicted Chauvin of second- and third-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter. He is now serving a 22 1/2 year sentence for that state conviction.

Chauvin appeared remotely Friday from a federal prison in arizona where he serves 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights.

Antonio Planas contributed.