In recent Justice News, the U.S. Department of Justice has released the following case indictment: "A federal grand jury in the District of Nevada returned a superseding indictment on May 10 charging a Las Vegas woman with two counts of filing false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and one count of corruptly endeavoring to impair and impede the due administration of the internal revenue laws."
The press release goes on to say that from at least 2005 through at least 2009, Judith Woodward, then known as Judith Atwell, was the 99 percent owner and joint operator of a dry cleaning business, Canyon Gate Cleaners, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Woodward is alleged to have underreported the gross receipts of Canyon Gate Cleaners on the partnership’s 2005 through 2009 tax returns. She is also alleged to have underreported her personal income on her 2005 through 2009 individual income tax returns.
According to the superseding indictment, between at least 2005 and 2009, Woodward concealed the true gross receipts of the business by depositing hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash receipts into personal bank accounts she controlled or by not depositing the cash receipts into any bank account. The superseding indictment alleges that Woodward fraudulently withheld information regarding the business’s gross receipts and her personal income from the individual who prepared the business’s partnership tax returns and her individual income tax returns for the years 2005 through 2009. Woodward is alleged to have used tens of thousands of dollars of unreported cash business receipts for personal expenditures, including the purchase of luxury vehicles. Woodward is also alleged to have made false and misleading statements to special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) during an interview in June 2010.
If convicted, Atwell faces a statutory maximum sentence of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count of the superseding indictment. She also faces supervised release and restitution.
If you have any concerns about criminal tax fraud, it is always best to get in touch with a criminal tax attorney. Contact Robert J. Fedor if you have any questions or concerns. With tax attorneys in Chicago and Cleveland, we can help you.
