I think cops are replacing pilots on the TP list

[Demosthenes]

Former Minneapolis officer convicted in tax fraud scheme
By JAMES WALSH, Star Tribune
December 9, 2008

A former Minneapolis police officer who has battled the state and federal governments to avoid paying income taxes was convicted Tuesday in federal court on tax and conspiracy charges.

Douglas E. Leiter, 40, of Minneapolis, is one of three tax protesters found guilty of scheming to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of more than $1 million by filing false tax returns. A jury found them guilty after three hours of deliberation.

Leiter was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS and to aid in the preparation of false tax returns, one count of filing a false tax return and one count of aiding a false tax return. Brian K. Scott, 42, of Zimmerman, was convicted of one count of conspiracy, one count of filing a false tax return and two counts of aiding a false tax return. Timothy P. McCarthy, 62, of St. Paul, was convicted of one count of conspiracy and two counts of aiding a false tax return.

The three were among six people indicted in August. Two of the six -- Laurie T. Strohbeen, 51, of St. Paul, and Christopher C. Robinson, 35, of Plymouth -- have each pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy. The sixth defendant, Mark D. Maxwell, 52, of Minneapolis, is a fugitive.

According to the indictment, from at least June 2001 through at least October 2004, the six ran a scam to file false tax returns and help others file false returns. Another scheme involved using bogus nonprofit organizations to hide income. The conspirators charged clients a fee for preparing the fraudulent returns and, in some cases, collected a percentage of refunds their clients received.

Leiter is no stranger to tax protest. In June 2001, he, McCarthy and Strohbeen helped create a company that did business in the name of Common Law Venue, federal officials said.

The website for Common Law Venue claims that the United States "is not our nation at all, but merely a corporation which is in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. What was worse, we learned, was that our so-called sovereign states, counties, and local governments operate under the umbrella of this bankruptcy every day."

In 2003, a Hennepin County judge rejected Leiter's lawsuit against the state Department of Revenue, claiming he owed no income taxes.

In 1998, while still a cop, Leiter's squad car struck a pickup truck, killing two people. Misdemeanor charges against him were dismissed, but in 2002, he left the police department.

The defendants each face maximum penalties of five years in prison for conspiracy and three years for each false tax return count. They will be sentenced at a later date.

[gezco]

More CtC victims? They got Pete Hendrickson stuff on their web cite.

http://www.commonlawvenue.net/main/Taxes.htm

[Demosthenes]

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has done an interesting, detailed profile on this tax denier.

http://www.startribune.com/local/420949 ... c:_Yyc:aUU

[Thule]

http://www.startribune.com/local/420949 ... c:_Yyc:aUU

"Barsness describes a thin man who wore a ponytail and strapped on three guns: one in a shoulder holster, one on his hip and one in the small of his back."

Those TPs sure love their guns...

[Mr. Mephistopheles]

"Barsness describes a thin man who wore a ponytail and strapped on three guns: one in a shoulder holster, one on his hip and one in the small of his back."

Those TPs sure love their guns...

Anyone here remember The Far Side Cartoon with the puffer fish, rattlesnake, and survivalist entitled Mother Nature's way of saying "Do Not Touch"?

[Demosthenes]

[Mr. Mephistopheles]

That's the one!

I have searched online ad nauseum, without success, for that cartoon. Thank you.

p.s. How foolish of me to forget the cat in Warning Mode.

[Demosthenes]

Tax fraud gets ex-Minnapolis cop 10 years
The former Minneapolis police officer will serve time in federal prison for his role in a $1 million scheme.

By BILL McAULIFFE, Star Tribune
Last update: August 18, 2009 - 10:25 PM

A former Minneapolis police officer was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Tuesday for not paying taxes and showing others how to avoid paying taxes as well.
Douglas Leiter and two co-defendants were convicted in December of conspiracy to defraud the IRS out of more than $1 million. Six people in all were indicted in the scheme.

Leiter had acted as his own attorney. On Dec. 9, a jury took only three hours to find him guilty.

Leiter, who had been an Eagle Scout as a youth, was a Minneapolis police officer from 1995 to 2002. He was known to chase drug dealers down his own alley in south Minneapolis while off duty, and for a while carried three guns while working on the sex crimes unit.

He was also notorious for a 1998 high-speed chase in which his squad car struck a pickup truck and killed two people in south Minneapolis. Following the crash, he was charged with two misdemeanors but not convicted. The families of the victims each received a $300,000 settlement from the city.

In 2001 Leiter was suspended for 60 hours in connection with an off-duty search for records regarding his one-time housemate and former priest Timothy McCarthy, who had been accused of criminal sexual contact with an inmate at the Hennepin County juvenile detention center. McCarthy, 63, was also convicted in the tax case with Leiter, but has not been sentenced.

Brian Keith Scott, 43, of Zimmerman, who was also found guilty with Leiter and McCarthy, was sentenced last month to 6 1/2 years in prison.

Three others were indicted with them a year ago. Laurie Therese Brausen, 52, of St. Paul was sentenced in April to six months in prison by U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz.

Christopher Craig Robinson, 36, of Plymouth is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 20. A sixth co-defendant, Mark David Maxwell, 53, of Minneapolis is a fugitive.

Leiter was regarded as the lead defendant in the case.

[Brandybuck]

What you are probably seeing is that there is a certain relatively miniscule percentage of law enforcement types who are just amoral, think they are above the law and allowed to do anything they want.

At one time such cops were relatively miniscule, but I suspect their numbers are growing. I don't have any statistics, but I am noticing an increasing number of "isolated" incidents. I don't know if this is due to any actual change in police culture, or if it just reflects an increase reporting on the abuses due to intertoobs, cellphone cameras, etc.

[Demosthenes]

'Ashamed' Plymouth man gets 20 months for tax evasion
By David Hanners
dhanners@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 08/20/2009 12:14:01 PM CDT

A Plymouth man whose "intellectual curiosity" and naïveté led him to fall in with a ring of tax cheats — and wound up filing falsified tax returns for them — was sentenced to 20 months in prison today.
Christopher Craig Robinson, 36, told a federal judge he was sorry and ashamed of his actions, and said he still wasn't quite sure what motivated the tax protesters he got involved with.
"I don't pretend to understand where they're coming from on a lot of that," Robinson told U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz.
While the judge said Robinson "provided valuable assistance to a large group of people who brazenly defrauded the United States out of a large amount of money," the man had a "spotless" record before getting involved with the group and he has "seemed to have learned his lesson more than the other defendants."
The 20-month sentence is longer than the 12 months that Robinson's attorney had asked for. It was shorter, though, than the 30 to 37 months that Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Cheever argued was appropriate for the single count of conspiracy that Robinson pleaded guilty to last November.
Robinson will have to spend two years on supervised release when he gets out of prison, but the judge told him he wasn't going to fine him because the man has lost his assets and he owes back taxes.
The sentencing was the second this week in a case brought by the government last year. On Tuesday, the group's ringleader, former Minneapolis policeman Douglas Earl Leiter, 41, was sentenced to 10 years and a month in prison.
Leiter and Robinson were among six people indicted in August 2008 for income tax evasion. They were among a group of what the IRS labels "defiers," people who defy paying their taxes by claiming that novel or unique interpretations of various laws exempts them from any tax burden.
The government accused the six of being part of a scam between June 2001 and October 2004 that involved filing false income tax returns and hiding income in phony nonprofit organizations.
It was also alleged that Robinson prepared falsified tax returns for others. If the fake return got the taxpayer a refund, the defendants charged the person a percentage of the refund, the indictment claimed.
Robinson and another co-defendant, Laurie Therese Strohbeen, 52, of St. Paul, reached plea deals with prosecutors and each pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy. Strohbeen was sentenced to six months in prison.
Leiter and two others — Brian Keith Scott, 43, of Zimmerman, Minn., and Timothy Paul McCarthy, 63, of St. Paul — took their case to trial. Before trial, they peppered the court with what Schiltz later described as "a steady stream of curious papers," many of which claimed that the court had no jurisdiction over them.
The three represented themselves at the December trial; it did not go well for them. A jury took three hours to find them guilty of tax-evasion charges.
Scott was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison. No sentencing date has been set for McCarthy.
A sixth man charged, Mark David Maxwell, 53, of Minneapolis, remains a fugitive.
For Robinson's sentencing, the courtroom was nigh-well full with his family and friends. One of his friends spoke on his behalf, as did his father, Craig Robinson.
At times speaking through tears, the father told Schiltz that his son is "a really good person."
"He made some lapses in judgment and trusted the wrong people," the elder Robinson said. "Some mistakes were made."
When it was his turn to speak, Robinson, composed, acknowledged, "I know I've made some mistakes.... I'm ashamed of it."
His lawyer, James Ostgard, told the judge that Robinson had an "intellectual curiosity" but also "a high level of naïveté" that allowed him to be "swept up by" Leiter, the protest group's ringleader.
"Mr. Robinson was influenced and persuaded by others that what he was doing was not wrong," the defense attorney said.
Ostgard also said that he'd defended tax protesters in the past, and generally found them cantankerous, thick and not willing to listen to sound legal advice. That wasn't the case with Robinson, he said."Mr. Robinson is not a tax protester," Ostgard said. "He's not angry. He's not someone who protests the federal government's power. He knows what he did was wrong."
He said that once Robinson became aware that what he was doing was wrong, he began filing amended tax returns and accepted responsibility for his actions.
"Mr. Robinson...believed that he was wrong," Ostgard said. "That says a lot about him."
Schiltz said Robinson would have to turn himself in on Sept. 28, and the judge said he'd recommend that he get to serve his sentence at a federal facility in Minnesota.

[Demosthenes]

Ex-fugitive, one of six accused in tax fraud, is found guilty
December 16, 2009
Mark David Maxwell, one of six defendants accused in an antitax scheme that included a former Minneapolis police officer, was found guilty Wednesday of one count of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and one count of filing a false tax return.
Maxwell was indicted on Aug. 20, 2008, with five codefendants, including former police officer Douglas Leiter. Maxwell fled prosecution and was later captured by U.S. marshals.
According to the U.S. attorney's office, Maxwell and the others participated in three schemes:
• They taught clients how to falsify federal tax form 1041, so that the client claimed to be a trust rather than an individual. As a result, the client deducted all or nearly all of their income as a "fiduciary fee" and reported little or no taxes owed, yet still claimed a refund.
• They prepared tax returns for themselves and their clients on which they claimed refunds by improperly declaring all or nearly all of their earnings as tax-deductible.
• They structured their business and the businesses of their clients as limited liability companies, owned by nonprofit organizations. They then distributed their profits among bank accounts held by the nonprofits, which did not pay taxes.
Maxwell faces up to five years in prison on the conspiracy conviction and up to three years in prison on the false tax return conviction. Sentencing has not been set.