PENNSYLVANIA VETERINARIAN CONVICTED OF TAX FRAUD

Defendant Concealed Assets In Foreign Accounts

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division of the Department of Justice, announced today that following eight days of trial, a federal jury in Erie, Pennsylvania convicted Daniel Leveto on one count of conspiring to defraud the United States for the purpose of impeding the Internal Revenue Service and on two counts of filing false individual federal income tax returns.

According to the testimony presented at trial, Dr. Leveto was a veterinarian who failed to disclose on his 1994 and 1995 federal tax returns more than two and one-half million dollars in gross receipts from his veterinary practice. He also failed to disclose on the tax returns that he controlled accounts in financial institutions in the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Dr. Leveto has been incarcerated since his arrest on March 24, 2004.

The maximum penalty for the conspiracy charge is five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The maximum penalty for each false return charge is three years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, in addition to the costs of prosecution. No date has been set for sentencing.

Assistant Attorney General O’Connor thanked Tax Division trial attorneys Rita Calvin and Thomas Voracek, who prosecuted the case. She also thanked the special agents of the IRS whose assistance was essential to the successful investigation and prosecution of the case.

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05-303