Tax Fraud Results in Prison for Former Businessman
Government investigators brought a case for tax fraud against a Pennsylvania businessman. The defendant’s business provided temporary employment services for a mail-sorting facility. Over the course of a few years, the defendant’s business employed more than 200 workers. The defendant received payment from his customers in the traditional manner. Yet instead of paying the workers in the standard format, the defendant paid his temporary workers in cash.
Those “under-the-table” payments spared the defendant the trouble of having to deduct payroll taxes. His strategy did not serve him well in the end, however. He faced 16 counts related to tax fraud.
Initially, the defendant wanted to contest the charges for tax fraud. By paying in cash, he believed that he had avoided a paper trail. As an entrepreneur, the businessman was convinced that he had experience in fighting battles. With a good defense attorney, he felt strongly that he could beat the charges. The government’s charges alleged that his crimes involved more than $9 million.
His entrepreneurial spirit deluded him into believing that a criminal indictment for tax fraud equated to a typical business challenge.
Fortunately, the defendant did some online research. He discovered PrisonProfessor.com. By downloading the free lesson plan, the defendant saw the wisdom in educating himself about the challenges that would accompany a criminal indictment. That initial download led the defendant to learn more. He downloaded lessons on the Presentence Investigation, on Sentence Mitigation strategies, and on Custody and Classification.
The more the defendant read, the more he realized that he should talk with a prison consultant. He learned that the wrong decision during the judicial process could expose him to a longer sentence in more difficult circumstances. He was astounded to read that white collar offenders could serve time in high security prisons.
The defendant hired a defense attorney to quarterback the judicial proceedings. At the same time, the defendant worked with one of our sentence mitigation experts. He retained a prison consultant to learn more about the prison experience and what options he had.
Tax Fraud Indictment
The more the defendant learned, the more comfortable he became with the reality that a criminal indictment for tax fraud would not be the end of the world for him if he made the right decisions. He agreed to work with his attorney in structuring a guilty plea.
Together with the help of a sentence mitigation expert, the defendant succeeded in crafting a persuasive package. It showed him as more than a defendant in a criminal tax fraud case. The sentence mitigation expert wrote a full narrative of the individual’s life, showing his good works as well as the influences that led to his bad decisions. As a consequence, the defendant received a much lower sentence than he anticipated. Further, he qualified for the RDAP program, which would result in his receiving a one-year time cut when he completed the Residential Drug Abuse Program in federal prison.
Defense attorneys provide an invaluable service to defendants who have been charged with tax fraud. But defendants should also seek guidance from a competent prison consultant and sentence mitigation expert. Together, the defense team can steer a defendant to the next phase of life.
