Bill of Exchange = 3 years, 10 months in prison

[Demosthenes]

Friday, June 12, 2009, 11:59am EDT
Metro man gets jail time for tax fraud

Cumming, Ga., resident Daniel Edward Turner was sentenced Friday to three years and 10 months in prison for obstruction and mailing fraudulent financial instruments to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Treasury to purportedly pay his back taxes.

Turner also was fined $5,000 and ordered to pay back $114,053 to the IRS.

Beginning in 1998 and continuing to 2007, Turner obstructed tax laws through a number of acts, including not filing tax returns, not paying taxes, hiding income, sending false financial instruments to the IRS and the Treasury, and falsely claiming that IRS employees committed misconduct, including the IRS district director, the chief of the Automated Collection Service and the revenue agent who audited him.

Between April 1998 and February 2004, Turner paid fees to an organization called “American Rights Litigators” (ARL) in exchange for his use of ARL’s fraudulent tax schemes. Turner submitted more than $491,000 in bogus financial instruments -- called “Bills of Exchange” -- to the U.S. Department of Treasury and IRS in purported payment of the federal tax liabilities he owed. The bogus “Bills of Exchange” took various forms, some of which appeared similar to regular checks, but were fraudulent in that they attempted to draw funds from non-existent accounts with the Treasury Department.

The evidence at trial also showed that in 2004, Turner obstructed IRS collection activities by causing a contractor of his residential framing business to issue more than $92,500 in payments to another person for services rendered to Turner, in an effort to conceal Turner’s true income from the IRS.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Another ARL disaster - and at least nine years of playing games with the IRS.

Demo - the country needs you on a nationwide book tour. Sooner than later. He**, the Treasury Department should pay for the trip.

It might save the Treasury and the Justice Department (not to mention the courts) millions and keep hundreds, maybe thousands of people from being prosecuted.

And think of all the trees that won't be cut down for gibberish filings!

[grixit]

I want the Meloncat mask concession.

[Nikki]

Country-wide book tour?

Bad idea. Too many sovereigns and TPs with grudges and weapons.

[Quixote]

Country-wide book tour?

Bad idea. Too many sovereigns and TPs with grudges and weapons.

And, as yet, no book.


Don't hurt me, Demo. I'm a bleeder.

[fortinbras]

No, I don't think it's the Hearst Castle that fits this description. The Winchester Mystery House, not too far away, is the house that never got finished, not for taxes, but because the crazy wealthy woman who owned it was told by a fortune teller that she would die after the construction was finished, so she kept adding instructions for rooms, stairs, walls, etc. (she died anyway and construction apparently stopped cold with doors and stairs that led nowhere). More in the nature of not finishing for tax reasons are the homes seen at Primitive Mormon compounds and other cult compounds; because of some loophole in the property taxes, there's a substantial tax break as long as the building - or a modification of it - is under construction (the tax authorities are not complete idiots, they come by occasionally to see if work is really being done), so every day there's some hammering, something being added, to every house.

[Demosthenes]

I used to work summers as a tour guide at the the Castle. My mom moved to Cambria when I headed north for college.

[Demosthenes]

Just prior to my working there, the employees could swim in the pools during off hours but the state of CA put a stop to it because the depth wasn't marked with ugly black letters according to state law. Idiots.

[grixit]

The naked time travelling killer robot currently in charge of our state is planning to shut down 80% of state public attractions, including parks and museums. So far Hearst Castle has been spared, but it's only the first round. In another few months, maybe you'll be able to buy the place.

[Demosthenes]

The naked time travelling killer robot currently in charge of our state is planning to shut down 80% of state public attractions, including parks and museums. So far Hearst Castle has been spared, but it's only the first round. In another few months, maybe you'll be able to buy the place.

It should be the last place they shut down. It's the most profitable state park in California.