A federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging Saud Alessa, Jeffrey Bowen and Jackie Hayes with conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Alessa has also been charged with tax evasion and filing false tax returns. The indictment explains that Bowen was the President and owner of a vacuum cleaner distributing company in Reno, Nevada.
Alessa worked for Bowen’s company on sales teams from 1998 to 2006. It is alleged that Alessa accrued more than $200,000 in unpaid federal income tax during those years. In 2006, the IRS took action in an attempt to begin collecting the outstanding tax liabilities. Alessa is accused of not voluntarily paying any of the outstanding debt to the IRS. In 2013, Alessa filed a bankruptcy petition reporting that he owned a federal tax debt of $503,821 to the Internal Revenue Service.
The indictment alleges that between 2010 and 2013, Alessa’s domestic partner Hayes and Bowen conspired to hide Alessa’s business activity and income from the IRS. It is alleged that Alessa’s commissions and other earned income were recorded in company books in Haye’s names and paid to Hayes. The three men are accused of filing fraudulent documents with the IRS to disguise the commissions and other income earned by Alessa. The indictment accuses the men of making false and misleading statements to the IRS.
Each of the men face five years in prison for the conspiracy counts. Alessa will face an additional five years on the tax evasion count and three more years in prison for each false return count. At this point in time, the defendants are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Further details can be found here.