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SALT LAKE CITY -- Four Utahns now face an 11-count federal indictment in what prosecutors say was a sophisticated scheme to hide millions of dollars in income from the Internal Revenue Service.
Forty-nine-year-old Lester Hemmert Mower, 49-year-old Eva Jeanette Mower, 48-year-old Adrian Angus Wilson and 50-year-old Nathan Whitney Drage are accused of failing to report, or underreporting, income related to sales of $30 million in stocks.
Prosecutors claim the four ran a mergers and acquisitions business for about seven years but used so-called nominees, people who would do business in the defendants' names, to hide the profits. The nominees would also spend money for mortgage payments, private school tuition for the defendants' children, remodeling expenses for their homes, even gambling debts.
U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman says it was a complex scheme, but one that investigators were able to crack.
"The IRS is particularly engaged during this economic time in rooting out fraud," Tolman said.
Paul Camacho, Special Agent in Charge at the IRS field office in Las Vegas was on hand for the announcement. "Nobody hates the IRS more than someone involved in wide-scale tax evasion," he said, noting that it was the IRS who took down Al Capone.
The four face indictments that, if convicted, could send them to prison for up to 10 years.
E-mail: mgiauque@ksl.com
