LAWFUEL – US Tax Law, Law Jobs – R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Charles E. Hunter, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, announced that defendant, Ellis Jerome Parker Sr. was sentenced on March 8th, 2007 by United States District Court Judge William P. Dimitrouleas in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to sixty (60) months imprisonment followed by a three (3) year term of supervised release. Parker, a Broward County income tax return preparer, was involved in a tax fraud scheme that resulted in fraudulent federal income tax refund claims of millions of dollars.
On November 1, 2006, after a two and half week jury trial before Judge Dimitrouleas, Parker was convicted on twelve (12) counts of preparing and presenting and aiding and assisting in the preparing and presenting of false and fraudulent income tax returns to the IRS, in violation of Title 26, United States Code, Section 7206(2), and one count of conspiracy to make and present fraudulent tax returns to the IRS, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. Judge Dimitrouleas remanded Parker to the custody of the United States Marshal following his conviction.
Evidence presented during the trial showed that defendant Parker, together with numerous co-conspirators who previously pleaded guilty, engaged in a massive scheme to defraud the IRS. The evidence proved that the defendant engaged in a pattern of falsifying Schedule A expenses to obtain fraudulent refunds for his clients and cause them to not owe any money to the Internal Revenue Service. The defendant usually falsified medical and dental expenses, charitable contributions and employee business expenses, knowing that these types of expenses are not independently reported to the Internal Revenue Service. The evidence also showed that the defendant forged his clients’ signatures on various documents and instructed his employees to forge signatures on documents that were submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. Many of the defendant’s clients testified at trial that they were unaware that the defendant had falsified their tax returns because they had not reviewed or received copies of their completed returns. The victim taxpayers first learned of the false expenses when they were audited by the IRS and had to repay the government the fraudulent portion of their refund, with interest and penalties. The defendant’s tax fraud scheme lasted more than three years and involved hundreds of tax returns.
Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division. This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Bertha R. Mitrani.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls . Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov/ or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov/.
