Tax Fraud

Eight people from Pennsylvania and New Jersey were indicted this week on charges of taking part in a tax-fraud conspiracy aiming to steal more than $3 million, federal authorities announced Friday. The indictment identified Michael Akers, 57, of Philadelphia and Cherry Hill, as the ringleader. Others charged were Raymond Holmes, 56, of Philadelphia; Wendell Cisco, 38, of York, Pa., and Suwanee, Ga.; William Fisher, 55, of Philadelphia; Lynell Matthews, 23, and Latoya Matthews, 27, both of Whitesboro, N.J.; Maria Latorre, 28, of York; and Jalon Hopewell, 27, of Philadelphia.

In 1987, former Philadelphia attorney Anthony A. Witlin, who for more than a decade directed the city's Board of Pensions, gave as a gift a new $20,748 Alfa Romeo to a girlfriend, a clerk at his law firm. The following year he treated himself to a much more expensive Italian sports car, paying $142,000 for a Ferrari Testarossa. But those boom years, when he could lavish pricey gifts on himself and others largely because he was cheating on his taxes, are apparently over for at least a little while.

Former Eagles wide receiver Freddie Mitchell has been charged with tax fraud for his role in a scheme to file false federal returns on behalf of professional athletes. The faked returns sought refunds ranging from $170,000 to $1.9 million. That money was to be split among Mitchell, his two coconspirators, and the named tax filer. The indictment, filed by the U.S. attorney in Orlando last April, details how Mitchell, 33, recruited clients for a tax return business run by Jamie Russ-Walls and Richard Walls, both of Bensalem.

In what U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan called one of the largest corporate tax cases to reach federal court in Philadelphia, a New Jersey firm was charged yesterday with willfully failing to pay taxes on $99 million worth of employee bonuses. E-Star Inc. of Somerset, which makes computer parts, has agreed to plead guilty and pay $32 million in fines, interest and penalties. The company admitted that it paid bonuses to U.S. employees in stock issued by its parent company in Taiwan - stock traded there - but failed to withhold income, Social Security or Medicare taxes.

A CONVICTED tax fraud who bamboozled the U.S. government out of more than $1 million and then escaped state custody by forging his own release papers was captured yesterday by U.S. marshals in West Philadelphia. The capture of Kevin William Small had followed an "extensive manhunt," federal authorities said. Small, 49, had been serving the first of two 135-month sentences for swindling the IRS, a fraud he committed while in a Pennsylvania state prison. In 2006, Small was indicted on tax-fraud and related charges for filing false tax returns.

A Narberth man who owned and operated a company that processed dental claims for labor union health and welfare funds was convicted by a federal jury Tuesday of willfully filing false tax returns from 1999 through 2002. Jonathon Felix, 51, who owned and operated United Professional Plans, Inc., which received management fees on a per claim or per person basis to process claims and resolve disputes between labor union members and dental providers. Among the unions UPPI worked for was District Council 33 of AFSCME, which represents the city of Philadelphia's blue-collar workers.

The owner of the Bare Feet Shoes chain and one of his store managers have been charged in an income tax fraud scheme to pay employees under the table in cash and with underreporting their own income, federal law enforcement officials announced today. Uri Jacobson, 41, of Philadelphia is charged with paying nearly $2.8 million in wages to his employees without reporting it to the Internal Revenue Service between 2004 and 2009. Jacobson operates a dozen shoe and discounts stores that employ 200 people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger.

Six people pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges related to an alleged $4.6 million tax fraud that the government says was orchestrated by a Blue Bell lawyer. Those who pleaded guilty yesterday before U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner were among 11 indicted last month. Prosecutors have described the case as the largest tax fraud in the region in recent memory. The lead defendant, lawyer Bernard Jay Bagdis, is accused of creating shell corporations, a fictitious foreign bank, and a basement-waterproofing company to hide $23 million income from the IRS. The loss to taxpayers was $4.6 million, officials said.

Two former top managers at Kensington Hospital yesterday were sentenced to prison by a federal judge for crimes uncovered by a joint state-federal task force investigating Medicaid and Medicare fraud. Ralph Cissone, the former administrator of the financially troubled hospital on Diamond Street near Front, was sentenced to an 18-month prison term for taking $6,300 in kickbacks from a hospital contractor. Cissone, 59, of Ocean City, N.J., had pleaded guilty to the kickback charge and to tax fraud.

MILAN - Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi has condemned as "unreal" his tax fraud conviction and said it was the result of "politicized" judges who have made Italy unlivable and no longer a democracy. Berlusconi spoke to his Mediaset television station Friday after a Milan court convicted him of tax fraud concerning the purchase of rights to broadcast U.S. movies on his private TV networks. He was sentenced to four years in prison though he remains free until all appeals are exhausted.