Green tax promoter gets 25 years in $1.4B fraud case

A real estate developer who promoted green tax breaks was sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday for selling $1.4 billion in fraudulent charitable deductions to wealthy investors and cheating the IRS out of $458 million in taxes.

Jack Fisher, 71, pioneered an industry that gave inflated tax deductions to syndicates of investors who promised not to develop land. Prosecutors argued at a two-month trial that Fisher used exaggerated appraisals and backdated documents to try to fool the Internal Revenue Service. He earned tens of millions of dollars, buying houses, an airplane and real estate.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten imposed the 25-year sentence and ordered Fisher to pay $458 million in restitution. Batten also sentenced Fisher co-defendant James Sinnott to 23 years in prison and ordered him to pay $444 million in restitution. 

A federal jury in Atlanta convicted Fisher and Sinnott on Sept. 22 after Batten removed a deliberating juror who told him she was "standing up for White people" amid conflicts over race and class within the panel. Last week, prosecutors asked Batten to sentence Fisher to 30 years, calling him a "rational, cool and calculated criminal" who got increasingly brazen. 

"Fisher, who by all accounts is a charismatic, well-educated, and intelligent man, used his talents to commit incomprehensible fraud," prosecutors said in a memo to the judge. "Fisher brazenly and unrepentantly spearheaded atrocious financial crimes that cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars."

After the hearing, Fisher attorney Claire Rauscher said: "We are disappointed with the sentence, which we think is out of line with other tax cases. We look forward to appealing the sentence and a host of other issues." 

Samuel Corum/Bloomberg

An attorney for Sinnott didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Prosecutors sought 28 years for Sinnott, saying in a court filing that the fraud "exploded" after he joined Fisher's conspiracy in 2013 and taxpayers claimed $1.3 billion in deductions. Sinnott's lawyers asked for eight years.  

In a court filing, his attorneys said: "This offense involved only one victim: the IRS. This case involved, at most, exploiting a legitimate tax deduction too aggressively. That is nothing to brag about, to be sure, but that behavior is considerably different than preying on innocent individuals and depriving them of their savings."

Big returns

Prosecutors say Fisher and his network of attorneys and accountants guaranteed charitable deductions to investors of at least four times more than the amount they put into deals known as syndicated conservation easements. The Internal Revenue Service has targeted the deals for years and audited at least 28,000 taxpayers who claimed $21 billion in deductions.

Fisher and Sinnott were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., wire fraud conspiracy, aiding in the filing of false tax returns, and filing false returns. Fisher, an accountant-turned-developer, was also found guilty of money laundering.

"Mr. Fisher's life has been ruined," Fisher's attorneys said in a memo to the judge. "The respect he once had in the community has turned to shame and embarrassment." 

They asked Batten to sentence Fisher to five years, saying he's an alcoholic with heart problems who has "passed out without explanation on multiple occasions" while detained since his conviction.   

Earlier on Tuesday, two Atlanta-area accountants, William Tomasello and Victor Smith, pleaded guilty to their role in the fraud. Smith's sentencing is set for April 24. 

While conservation easements are permitted by Congress, the syndicated deals were banned by legislation that President Joe Biden signed in late 2022. That law limited charitable deductions to 2.5 times the amount people invested, which removed the economic incentives behind the abusive tax shelters.  

The case is U.S. v. Lewis et al, 21-cr-00231, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta).