A San Francisco software engineering manager, Dwayne Lorenzo Richardson, was found guilty of tax evasion charges by a federal jury, as reported by the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. Richardson, aged 53, faced a three-count indictment for evading payment of his income taxes from 2017 to 2019.
During the trial presided over by Senior U.S. District Judge William Alsup, evidence was presented that Richardson claimed he owed only approximately $28,496 in taxes despite earning over $1.2 million in that time frame, he claimed more than $1.1 million in medical expenses, a sum that was overstated by over $945,000. Consequently, Richardson unlawfully received refunds totaling upwards of $165,000 for those years. Richardson was then untruthful in two separate audit interviews with an IRS revenue agent, claiming these medical expenses were for an appendectomy that turned out to have occurred much earlier in 2010.
According to the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California court record, Richardson's actual medical expenses for the appendectomy were less than a few hundred dollars, contradicting the substantially higher numbers he had included on his tax returns. Richardson once explained to a representative during a tax audit that he continued to report the non-existent expenses because he hadn't been "caught" after the first time. The prosecution made this known during the trial. IRS-CI Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael Mosley and United States Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey announced the guilty verdict following the jury's conclusion.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jared S. Buszin and Ryan Rezaei, and Special Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Chou with help from Helen Yee, resulting from an IRS-CI investigation. Richardson's sentencing hearing is scheduled for January 14, 2025, and he faces up to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine for each of the three counts. However, the final sentence will be determined after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the relevant federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.
