Based on an Internal Revenue Service investigation and a 50-count federal grand jury indictment issued this week, authorities today arrested a Costa Mesa tax preparer in Prescott, Arizona.
Ronald Vernon Strawn, 67, will face charges that he fraudulently prepared income tax forms that focused on manufacturing false deductions, according to the IRS criminal division.
The Tax Man isn't happy because Strawn allegedly listed more than $6.5 million in fake business losses on at least 50 tax returns, the IRS claims.
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The government's statement on the case does not specify the period of the alleged false filings.
Strawn, who was caught cheating in 2008, now faces 150 years in prison
and a $5 million fine if he is convicted by Assistant United States
Attorney Todd T. Tristan.
For all of you thinking about cheating
on next week's filing, consider this: Leslie P. DeMarco, IRS Special
Agent in Los Angeles, says think again or risk serious consequences.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.