The owner of two popular Santa Ana restaurants has been placed on two years of federal probation after admitting that he tried unsuccessfully to trick the Internal Revenue Service on $16,000.
Shien Wong–a native of Taiwan and owner of Taqueria Carniceria Tapatia and Taqueria Tapatia–was arrested by federal authorities in March and eventually admitted that he knowingly tried to evade IRS disclosure requirements by making two, $8,000 bank deposits in May 2010 into his GBC International accounts.
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Federal reporting requirements mandate that banking institutions inform the IRS of all $10,000 deposits.
It's not clear exactly why Wong–born in 1954–tried to cheat but his two sons–Jason and James–told U.S. District Court Judge Andrew J. Guilford that their father is a good man, excellent father and remorseful about his crime.
Robert S. Horwitz,
Wong's criminal defense lawyer who said the money did not involve
illegal funds, asked for a punishment of one year of probation.
This week, both Guilford and a federal prosecutor agreed that a term of two years of probation was adequate.
Wong's restaurant has been touted as superb by Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano.
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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.