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SALT LAKE CITY — A former CPA from Heber City has been sentenced to serve more than six years in federal prison for filing false tax returns for himself and 16 clients that led to bogus refunds totaling more than $8.8 million.
Dick Reid Jenkins faced up to 90 years in prison after a jury found him guilty in June of 19 counts of filing false tax returns and one count of presenting a fictitious financial instrument to the U.S. Treasury Department.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups sentenced Jenkins to serve 78 months in federal prison. Following his release from prison, Jenkins will spend an additional 36 months under federal supervision. He must also pay $250,340 in restitution to the IRS.
Jenkins, 64, was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2013. Prosecutors alleged that Jenkins filed a false 2007 income tax return for himself in September 2008 that claimed a federal income tax refund of $402,920. One month after that, he filed a false amended 2004 income tax return that claimed an income tax refund of $434,261, according to the indictment.
On top of the false returns he filed on his own behalf, Jenkins also filed false federal income tax returns on behalf of 16 of his clients, the indictment states. Those returns claimed federal income tax refunds totaling $8.4 million, investigators said.
In 2010, a federal judge permanently barred Jenkins from working as a federal tax return preparer after prosecutors presented evidence that showed Jenkins had "repeatedly engaged in fraudulent or deceptive conduct."
"Jenkins’s scheme is part of a growing trend among tax defiers to file frivolous tax returns and Forms 1099-OID with the IRS and courts in an attempt to escape their federal tax obligations and steal from the U.S. Treasury," according to a finding of fact contained in the court order.
Jenkins is scheduled to begin serving his prison sentence on Jan. 21.
