Action; very little cash; not from around here; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Cedar Hills, Utah: Exec Paul Kenneth Cromar has been convicted of tax evasion and of forcibly retaking property that had been seized by the government to pay his outstanding tax debt.
Cromar owned a home in Cedar Hills and operated Blue Moon Productions, a freelance film and media production company. From 1999 through 2005, he filed no federal income tax returns and paid no tax. In 2007, the IRS audited and assessed him $703,266.96 in taxes, interest and penalties. After Cromar failed to make any payments towards his outstanding debt, the government filed to foreclose on his home. A federal judge eventually ordered that Cromar's home be sold at auction and the proceeds used to pay off some of the taxes owed.
Cromar attempted to stop the sale by filing bogus documents on the property's title and with the IRS, intimidating potential purchasers or investors for the home and harassing IRS personnel by filing frivolous lawsuits against them personally. Shortly before the court-ordered sale closed, Cromar forcibly broke into the home and attempted to reclaim it. With the help of others, he occupied the home unlawfully for five months, fortifying it with weapons, sandbags and wooden boards tactically placed throughout the house.
Through his criminal conduct, Cromar caused a tax loss to the IRS of $1,174,201.91.
The jury convicted Cromar of one count of tax evasion and one count of forcibly rescuing seized property. He was acquitted of attempting to interfere with the administration of internal revenue laws.
Cromar faces up to five years in prison for tax evasion and two years for forcibly retaking seized property.
Albany, New York: Juller Perez Salcedo of Garfield, New Jersey, has been sentenced to three years of probation, including six months of home detention, for conspiring to commit wire fraud and honest services fraud, and for tax evasion.
As part of his prior guilty plea, Perez Salcedo admitted that from at least 2015 to 2019 he co-owned a trucking company in New Jersey that transported products as a third-party contractor for a bedding company with a distribution facility in West Coxsackie, New York. Perez paid kickbacks to the transportation manager of the bedding company, Leonard Hummel, in exchange for use of the company's trucks and drivers to transport merchandise from West Coxsackie to Perez's truck yard in Clifton, New Jersey, which allowed Perez to avoid certain transportation costs. (Hummel has since pleaded guilty.)
Perez then fraudulently invoiced and received payment from the bedding company as if his trucking company had transported and delivered the merchandise. Perez caused $422,170.86 in losses to the bedding company.
Perez also evaded taxes between January 2014 and April 2018 by cashing gross receipts checks on behalf of his trucking business, providing false and incomplete information to tax preparers, and omitting the cashed checks and filing false federal income tax returns. He evaded $477,090 in taxes.
Perez was also ordered to pay $422,170.86 restitution to the bedding company, and $477,090 to the IRS, and separately ordered to forfeit $422,170.86 in proceeds from the fraud.
Boston: Gary P. DeCicco, of Winthrop, Massachusetts, and Pamela M. Avedisian, of Nahant, Massachusetts, have each pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and tax evasion.
Between April 2012 and February 2013, DeCicco repeatedly told the IRS that he did not have the ability to pay his $340,000-plus tax liability and that he had very little cash, no vehicles or real property and no ownership interest in any asset with a positive value. He in fact had ownership interests in several businesses, vehicles and real properties titled in his name and the names of Avedisian, Lynnway Auto Sales Inc., and other entities to conceal those assets from the IRS.
Beginning in 2013, after the IRS accepted DeCicco's proposed monthly payment plan (based on the false information he'd provided about his assets and income), DeCicco bought and sold numerous real properties, boats and high-end cars, and concealed those assets and his income from the IRS, often with Avedisian's help.
Avedisian also owned a property in Nahant that was subject to a mortgage of more than $1 million. In 2015, DeCicco and Avedisian conspired to defraud the mortgage holder by proposing the sale of the property for significantly less than the outstanding mortgage, a.k.a. a "short sale." To get approval for the sale, DeCicco and Avedisian concealed their long-term romantic and business relationships from the loan servicing company and falsely represented that Avedisian could no longer make payments towards the mortgage. In fact, just two months before the short sale closed, Avedisian purportedly received $3.5 million from the sale of another asset to DeCicco.
The conspiracy charges each provide for up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. DeCicco's sentencing is Sept. 18; Avedisian's sentencing hasn't been scheduled.
Hartford, Connecticut: Lyell Champagne Jr., of St. Louis, has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from two schemes.
Between around March 2021 and April 2022, Champagne conspired with Kristian Gupta of Port Charlotte, Florida, to obtain online bank account credentials from potential victims and then transferred money from victims' bank accounts to cryptocurrency accounts controlled by Champagne and Gupta. Gupta provided Champagne with personal ID information of victims, which he used to open email accounts and accounts at a cryptocurrency exchange.
In a second scheme, Champagne filed phony returns for "Shireberk International," which had no actual business operations, for the 2018 through 2021 tax years. The returns resulted in a refund of $3,449,935.
Champagne pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, which carries a maximum of 30 years in prison, and one count of filing false claims with the IRS, which carries a maximum of five years. He has agreed to pay $111,738.52 in restitution; authorities recovered the remaining money. Champagne's sentencing is Sept. 10. Gupta pleaded guilty in April and will be sentenced on Sept. 19.
Oklahoma City: Kevin Lane Bierig has pleaded guilty to corruptly endeavoring to obstruct or impede the due administration of the federal tax laws.
Bierig has not filed a return since at least 2005 despite being required to do so based on his income. The IRS initiated enforcement action in 2013, which included the collection of levied funds from Bierig's paychecks.
Court documents allege that beginning in 2017, Bierig, knowing of the IRS enforcement actions, forged the signature of a revenue officer, including on an IRS installment agreement and an IRS release of levy, to have levied funds paid to himself rather than be sent to the IRS.
Bierig faces up to three years in federal prison, and a fine of up to $250,000.
Bakersfield, California: Miguel Martinez, 39, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to submit $25 million in fraudulent individual federal income tax returns.
From November 2019 through June 2023, Martinez was one of the leaders of a scheme to file hundreds of fraudulent returns that claimed millions in refunds. Martinez and others caused false wage and withholding information for individuals who supposedly worked at businesses, which were also fake, to be submitted to the IRS. Federal agents determined that the individuals did not work at the businesses, the businesses were fake because the businesses never actually paid any withholdings to the IRS and the purported owners were unaware of the businesses. Martinez and others then submitted fraudulent returns in the names of the individuals and claimed federal refunds.
The IRS paid out $2.3 million in fraudulent refunds. When federal agents arrested Martinez and searched his three homes, he was found with another $750,000 in fraudulent tax refund checks, ID cards for more than 200 individuals, and multiple firearms and ammunition.
Martinez will be sentenced on Sept. 23. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. His co-defendant, a tax preparer, is pending trial.
