Police Officers Cop Out of
Paying Taxes and Get Jail Time
Two former New York police officers, Alan Laird and Steven Rosenbaum, were sentenced to prison for failing to report millions of dollars in income from a private security business they owned. The two men owned Swoop1, which provided security personnel to high schools, colleges, businesses and performing arts venues in the Rochester area.
From 2016 to 2021, Laird and Rosenbaum did not report gross receipts totaling $5,598,354. Instead of depositing checks paid to the company in the business bank accounts, they cashed them at local check cashing facilities. They used a portion of the money, $2,675,467, to pay their employees in cash, which resulted in a failure to pay $204,673 in payroll taxes.
Laird and Rosenbaum split the remaining cash, approximately 1.3 million dollars each, and did not report any of the money on their personal tax returns.
During this time, Laird was the chief of the Irondequoit, NY police department and Rosenbaum was a former officer with the department.
Both Laird and Rosenbaum were sentenced to six months in prison and six months of home confinement. Laird was ordered to pay $632,722 in restitution to the IRS and Rosenbaum was ordered to pay $559,898.
Vitamin Business Owner to Supplement IRS
With Money for Unpaid Taxes
Francis Dulac pleaded guilty to tax evasion and faces up to five years in prison for underreporting his income between 2016 and 2022.
Dulac owned a nutrition and supplements business that grossed between $275,000 and $366,000 annually. On his tax returns, Dulac reported an annual income between $12,000 and $20,000. He also earned more than $10,000 from the sale of illegal steroids. He avoided paying a half a million dollars in income taxes over seven years.
Dulac used cash in his business, and purchased expensive sports cars including Mercedes, Lamborghini and Ferraris worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that he financed claiming an income of $125,000 and $480,000.
Doctor “doctors” Tax Returns and
Insurance Claims, Heads to Prison
A Virginia doctor pleaded guilty to insurance fraud, obstructing the IRS, underreporting his income and filing false tax returns. Dr. Jasser Thiara owned an OB-GYN medical practice and a pain management clinic, and reduced his taxable income between 2017 and 2020 by claiming bogus tax deductions from the medical practice and by failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in gross receipts from the pain clinic.
From 2014 to 2016, Thiara also worked with a pharmacist who submitted millions of dollars’ worth of insurance claims for bogus prescriptions. In return for the patient ‘referrals’, Thiara received approximately 2.2 million dollars from the pharmacist that he failed to report on his tax returns.
Thiara established a third business, NTMT, that he used to receive payments for medical services billed out of network, primarily from two insurance companies he was an in-network provider for. On tax returns Thiara reported that NTMT had minimal to no income when it had received millions from insurance companies. Thiara used some of these funds to purchase a 3.4 million dollar house, a $340,000 Ferrari and hundreds of thousands on credit cards and luxury items.
Thiara has agreed to pay the IRS $3,172,001in taxes and $2,214,830 to insurance companies. He faces a lengthy prison sentence.
Financial Advisor Creates Ponzi Scheme to Fund Lifestyle
Richard Kessler, a self-employed investment broker and financial advisor, was sentenced to 24 months in prison for fraud, and 12 months for tax evasion.
Kessler earned commissions from managing retirement plans for small businesses. After making presentations to employees of the businesses he worked with, he used private conversations with the employees to convince them to pull their funds out of their company plans and invest them with him.
Several employees gave Kessler more than $161,000 to invest. Kessler deposited the funds into his business savings account, and then made transfers to his personal bank accounts for personal expenses. He also used a portion of the funds to make payments to earlier investors.
Kessler filed no returns from 2014 to 2017, despite earning $446,925 in legitimate and illegitimate income.
He was ordered to pay $82,627 in restitution to the IRS and $97,481.34 to his victims. At the time of sentencing he had already paid $82,500 to the victims.
Restaurant Owners Feed Their Greed with Tax and COVID Relief Funds
Restaurant owners Gholam and Karen Kowkabi were sentenced to 57 months in prison and 24 months’ probation, respectively, for tax evasion. Gholam Kowkabi was also charged with stealing more than $700,000 in relief funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Kowkabis owned three restaurants in the Washington DC area and concealed assets and large sums of income by purchasing property in the name of a nominee and making false entries into the business books to hide personal purchases. From 1998 to 2018 they amassed an unpaid tax balance of $1,351,038.51, including federal income and employment taxes and trust fund recovery penalties.
Gholam Kowkabi also received 1.6 million dollars in COVID relief funds from two PPP loans and one EIDL grant. Instead of using the funds for the allowed business expenses, he purchased a beachfront condo for more than $500,000, invested more than $250,000 for the construction of homes in a joint business venture, and $78,500 to open another restaurant. He used $11,000 to pay his home mortgage, $14,000 on vacations, more than $62,000 on personal legal expenses, more than $20,000 on home improvements and more than $5,500 on college tuition payments for his children.
In addition to the prison and probation sentences, the couple has been ordered to pay $1,135,038.51 in restitution to the IRS. Gholam was also ordered to pay $738,657.18 to the small business administration, and to forfeit the oceanfront condo and the interest in the business ventures.
Corrupt Tax Preparer Gambled on Cheating IRS and Lost
Samir Patel, a tax preparer in Georgia, was sentenced to two years in prison for tax evasion.
Patel worked for a national tax preparation business from 1999 to 2015, when he purchased his own tax preparation franchise.
From 2017 to 2021, while continuing to train tax preparers for his business and doing tax returns for his personal clients, he failed to report 1.28 million dollars in income on his own returns. This included almost 1.18 million dollars from another business he owned, S&W Amusements. That company placed coin operated gaming machines in gas stations and convenience stores.
After the prison sentence Patel must serve three years of supervised release, during which time he is prohibited from preparing tax returns for others or for any entities he has no interest in.
Your IRS Questions Answered Here…
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The IRS considers your income, assets, expenses, ability to pay, and whether paying the full amount, even over time, would cause financial hardship. It’s important to remember that the IRS wants its money and will only accept an Offer in Compromise if it thinks it’s in the best interest of the government and it wouldn’t receive any money otherwise.
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