Tax Fraud

An IRS agent whose job entailed conducting audits of taxpayers agreed to plead guilty Monday to a federal charge of cheating on his own taxes, authorities said. Jim H. Liu, 43, of Diamond Bar signed court papers admitting that he filed a false tax return for 2002 that cheated the government out of nearly $15,000, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. According to a plea agreement filed in U.S.

A judge has sentenced an Encino doctor to 15 months in federal prison for filing false tax returns, U.S. Atty. Alejandro Mayorkas announced Wednesday. Leonid Modilevsky, 63, was sentenced Jan. 26 in U.S. District Court after previously pleading guilty to three felony charges and admitting he filed bogus tax returns in 1990, 1991 and 1992. Modilevsky failed to report $3.6 million in income he received for medical services he provided as a general practitioner over that three-year period.

Two men who own a Calabasas telecommunications company have pleaded guilty to filing a fraudulent corporate income tax return as part of a scheme to gain unfair business advantages, federal officials said Friday. Milton J. Ramas, 65, of Agoura, pleaded guilty to one count of filing a false corporate income tax return in 1995, Assistant U.S. Atty. Lee Arian] said. Lawrence R.

The owner of a Riverside halfway house and a homeless man were indicted by a federal grand jury Friday on tax fraud charges, alleging that they attempted to claim more than $600,000 in bogus refunds. Peaches Mercer Turner, owner of the halfway house, was also charged with aggravated identity theft, wire fraud and obstructing an IRS investigation.

A Los Angeles woman admitted she helped recruit about 200 people to help bilk the government out of nearly $500,000 through fraudulent tax returns, the U.S. attorney's office said Friday. Prosecutors said Cheryl Jones, 39, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to her role in the scam, conspiring to aid others in filing false income tax returns. Jones is one of eight defendants charged in one of the nation's largest electronic tax scams.

Four people, including three San Fernando Valley residents, were sentenced Thursday for defrauding the U.S. government out of about $1 million by filing bogus income tax returns by computer, prosecutors said. Sheila Green and Doris Martin of Van Nuys, Chissay White of Sylmar and Daphne Thomas of Los Angeles were sentenced in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by Judge Laughlin E. Waters. They re among eight defendants in the case, all of whom pleaded guilty.

After a yearlong investigation, Mexican Treasury Department officials Monday charged boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, this nation's top sports idol, with committing more than $1 million in tax fraud. Chavez, a former world champion who also is much revered in the Latino community in Southern California, has called the probe a "public lynching" and a "conspiracy."

Evangelist Tony Alamo was arrested Friday by Internal Revenue Service agents on tax fraud charges following a hearing in San Fernando Superior Court on an unrelated felony child abuse case. The 58-year-old former country singer, whose real name is Bernie Lazar Hoffman, was arrested by federal agents as his state pretrial hearing concluded in the San Fernando court, said Los Angeles district attorney's spokeswoman Suzanne Childs. A grand jury in Memphis, Tenn.

A Calabasas mining executive was indicted Wednesday on charges that he induced investors, including comedian Dom DeLuise, to claim inflated income tax deductions for investments in a Colorado gold mine. An estimated $55 million in false deductions were claimed based on investments in two Woodland Hills mining companies owned by Phillip F. Myers, 51, according to the indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Investors in Myers' Omni Resource Development Corp.