FEDERAL COURT
Tax defier sentenced to prison term
An East Aurora chiropractor trusted members of a Florida-based tax defiance organization when they told him he didn’t have to pay income taxes.
That advice led to a 21-month federal prison term for John Weisberg on Wednesday. He was also ordered to repay $144,000 in back taxes.
U. S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott sentenced Weisberg, 54, who was convicted by a jury in February of three misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to file tax returns.
Authorities said he was sentenced for tax crimes that he committed while a member of the American Rights Litigators, a Florida-based organization of people who defy federal tax collections.
Federal prosecutors said an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service showed that Weisberg stopped filing tax returns in 1995 and paid no federal income taxes between 1995 and 2003.
Instead of paying taxes, prosecutors said, Weisberg had American Rights Litigators send the IRS a series of letters giving “false and frivolous” reasons why he should not be required to pay taxes.
IRS officials said Weisberg is one of a number of people throughout the country who have been convicted of tax crimes after following the advice of American Rights Litigators. Actor Wesley Snipes, another former member of the group, was sentenced to a three-year prison term in April after a trial in Ocala, Fla.
“There is no secret formula that can eliminate a person’s tax obligations,” said Eileen Mayer, chief of the IRS criminal investigation division.
A 2004 federal court injunction ordered American Rights Litigators to halt “promoting certain fraudulent schemes,” the U. S. Justice Department said after Weisberg’s sentencing.
His attorney, Rodney O. Personius, said Weisberg followed the advice of the tax defiance organization and later regretted it.
