The Associated Press in Seattle reported this morning that IRS agents recently busted a massive tax-shelter scheme with potential ties to Santa Ana and Fountain Valley.
According to federal court documents unsealed yesterday, Robert Arant created a “warehouse bank” that allowed “people who wanted the discretion of a Swiss bank account without going to Switzerland.” Arant faces angry IRS agents for allegedly helping hundreds of citizens around the country evade taxes on at least $28 million.
The wire service claims IRS investigator Susan Killingsworth traced a portion of the hidden money to Carl Melville, a Santa Ana chiropractor.
In 2004, the IRS busted a Fountain Valley-based “warehouse bank” scheme run by Anthony L. Hargis. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruled that Hargis had used bank accounts in his own name in several states to shelter money and to help people avoid IRS “paper trails.” At one point, Carter jailed Hargis for refusing to identify his accomplices.
Arant faces potential civil penalties for promoting the scheme if he loses a civil case filed by the government.
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.