Reality bites; can buy you love; community mistrust; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Malden, Massachusetts: Tax preparer Yves Isidor, of Somersville, Massachusetts, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for filing false returns for clients.
Yves Isidor owned and operated Tax Realty Pro, a tax prep service. From 2012 to 2019, Isidor prepared more than 1,500 returns for taxpayers, falsifying returns for unsuspecting clients by preparing fraudulent schedules that claimed inappropriate expenses or deductions. On multiple occasions, Isidor inflated clients' total itemized deductions by fabricating medical expenses, charitable contributions, employment expenses and taxes. On a few occasions, he inflated expense deductions when clients were self-employed or owned rental properties.
Isidor caused a loss to the United States of $443,000.
He was also ordered to serve a year of supervised release.
Wilmington, Delaware: Domenico Mazzella, owner and operator of a local Italian restaurant, has pleaded guilty to a multiyear scheme to evade taxes.
Mazzella pleaded guilty to four counts of tax evasion and 12 counts of failure to collect, account for and pay over trust fund taxes.
From at least 2017 through 2020, Mazzella defrauded the IRS by failing to pay required employment taxes; he instead paid employees entirely in cash and concealed this from his tax preparer. Mazzella also attempted to evade a substantial portion of his personal income tax by diverting more than $600,000 from the business's bank accounts to his personal account, falsely characterizing the payments as reimbursements for business expenses. His overstatement of expenses caused his tax preparer to underreport the restaurant's income, which in turn caused Mazzella's personal income to be substantially underreported on his returns.
He has agreed to pay $549,370.39 in restitution to the IRS and faces up to five years in prison for each of the 16 counts of conviction.
Wilmette, Illinois: Former Chicago attorney Michael Abramson, 76, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for committing tax fraud, attempting to tamper with a witness and for violating a court order.
He provided more than $1 million in personal expenses to a woman with whom he was romantically involved and then deducted the payments on his individual taxes by falsely characterizing them as commissions or loans. He also listed the fraudulent loans as an asset in corporate tax returns that he caused to be filed for a company in which he held an ownership interest. The payments related to a condo, several luxury automobiles, and travel, shopping and restaurant expenses.
Following the indictment in this case, Abramson was ordered to have no contact with witnesses, including his bookkeeper, whom he knew would be an important government witness at trial.
Weeks before trial was set to begin, Abramson gave the bookkeeper a copy of her previous court testimony, on which he had made handwritten notes changing, supplementing or otherwise scripting her answers, and told her to review it before trial. Although Abramson told the bookkeeper not to bring the notes to a meeting with law enforcement; the bookkeeper nonetheless turned the scripted transcript over to authorities.
Abramson was convicted last year on all 15 counts of tax fraud, and witness tampering.
He was also fined $25,000.
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania: Former local township secretary and treasurer Pamela D. Hackenburg, 56, has been sentenced to two years in prison after stealing nearly $533,000 from a township to fund a gambling addiction and pay personal expenses.
Her sentence was part of a maximum of four years in prison to be followed by two years of probation, news outlets said; she was also ordered to pay more than $615,000 in restitution, which includes the stolen money, payroll tax penalties, legal fees and more.
Authorities told news outlets that Hackenburg used the township's credit cards 3,664 times for personal gain. The fraud spanned March 2019, about two months after she was hired, to May 2024, when she was indefinitely suspended without pay. She was reportedly fired late last year and pleaded guilty in July.
News reports said Hackenburg gambled away much of the money — $322,185; she also spent more than $33,000 on such personal expenses as utilities and shopping, gasoline, meals, nail salons, and wine and spirits stores, among many others.
A tax preparer the township hired to audit finances after Hackenburg was suspended reportedly said Hackenburg's office was disorganized, with piles of papers and old checks that were signed but not deposited.
Petersburg, Indiana: Former nonprofit director Ellen L. Corn, 50, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, after pleading guilty to five counts of wire fraud. Corn has also been ordered to pay $121,439.72 in restitution.
Her nonprofit facilitates a youth mentoring program and provides college scholarships for local high school students. During her employment, Corn had various financial responsibilities, including entering all income and expenses into the organization's accounting software, and had access to the organization's credit card.
Corn stole $161,344.85 via several methods, including by using the organization's credit card to pay for personal expenses at various businesses and restaurants, such as Amazon, Target and Walmart, and to make tuition payments to colleges for her children. She made some 1,226 unauthorized transactions with the credit card and stole money by making unauthorized transfers from the organization's PayPal account to her personal PayPal account. She also made unauthorized purchases directly from the nonprofit's checking account via debit card and check.
Corn ensured that the organization's accounts had enough funds to pay for her illegitimate expenses by reducing funding for certain departments and programs.
Corn deliberately omitted the unauthorized transactions from the nonprofit's accounting records, which she regularly presented to the board of directors and the organization's tax preparer.
