Former North American Telugu Association (NATA) president Dr. Raghava Reddy Ghosala has pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court in a case involving millions of dollars in fraudulent corporate donation matching payments.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the 65-year-old resident of North Wales, Pennsylvania, entered his guilty plea on October 5, 2026, in San Jose. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Ghosala led NATA from 2019 through 2022. During that period, the nonprofit obtained corporate matching funds for employee donations that did not qualify under the programs.
Corporate donation matching programs allow employers to contribute to charities based on donations made by their employees. In this case, NATA usually refunded the employees’ contributions, often in cash or through intermediaries, while the employers made matching payments based on those contributions.
This meant companies paid matching funds for donations that had effectively been returned to the donors. The scheme secured millions of dollars from multiple employers nationwide, according to federal prosecutors.
Ghosala also admitted working with others to falsify NATA’s tax returns for 2019 through 2021. Payments used to reimburse donors were recorded as legitimate expenses, and he approved the returns despite knowing they were false.
Another defendant in the same scheme, Venkateswara Kalluri, pleaded guilty to the two conspiracy charges on June 23, 2025.
Ghosala is scheduled to be sentenced on February 22, 2027, before U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila. The wire fraud conspiracy count carries a maximum prison term of 20 years, while the conspiracy to defraud the United States count carries up to five years. His actual sentence will be determined by the court after considering federal sentencing guidelines and other applicable factors.
The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation investigated the case.
