KANSAS CITY, United States (CMC) — A US businesswoman has been sent to jail for 18 months and ordered to pay US$1.7 million to the United States Internal Revenue Services (IRS) as she lied under oath about her business in the Cayman Islands.

Cheryl Womack, 66, who has a home and permanent residency status in the Cayman Islands, was sentenced on Monday after she pleaded guilty in April 2016 to testifying falsely under oath with the corrupt intent to impede an IRS investigation.

Womack is accused of using sham nominee directors to conceal her involvement with various Cayman Islands businesses to hide from the IRS more than US$6 million in income over a 20-year period.

According to a sentencing memorandum from the US Department of Justice, she hid her ownership of shell companies and trusts to conceal income earned in the United States, transfer it to the Cayman Islands, and grow it tax-free until she chose to repatriate it to the US.

This resulted in a criminal tax loss of US$1,704,421, which Womack paid in restitution to the IRS after sentencing this week.

The court documents allege Womack created a web of undisclosed financial accounts, businesses, nominees, and trusts in the Cayman Islands to hide income from the IRS.

Womack, through her Cayman Islands companies, owns condominiums on Grand Cayman, which she purported to pay rent on as a means of concealing her income, and in Trump Tower in New York.

The court records further indicate that Womack used a Cayman Islands company to hide more than US$500,000 in income from the sale of her wine collection at auction.

The charge of lying under oath relates to testimony from Womack at a deposition in a civil enforcement action brought by the Department of Justice in 2009 against a tax adviser that was known to her.