PHOENIX (LAWFUEL) – James Douglas Sherriffs, 59, of Scottsdale, Ariz., was sentenced to 6 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge James A. Teilborg. Sherriffs was previously convicted in 2004 and has been on supervised release since 2005. The recent sentence was imposed after Sherriffs admitted to violating three of the special conditions of his supervised release. One of the conditions was the restriction of providing tax preparation and accounting services.
Sherriffs was originally indicted on April 10, 2003 on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and failure to file a tax return. According to the indictment, Sherriffs and two co-defendants marketed a system of trusts under the name PROTEC SERVICES TRUST. The trusts were set up with the purpose of evading the payment of federal taxes. According to the indictment, Sherriffs was a Certified Public Accountant. Sherriffs pleaded guilty on September 21, 2004. He was sentenced to 12 months plus one day in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution of $482,252.68.
Sherriffs was sentenced on September 8, 2008. The investigation in this case was conducted by special agents of the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division. The prosecution was handled by Peter Sexton, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Arizona, Phoenix.
CASE NUMBER: CR-03-00375-PHX-JAT
RELEASE NUMBER: 2008-242(Sherriffs)
