Chiropractor Sentenced for Bribing IRS Auditor

BOSTON – A Lowell chiropractor was sentenced today to nine months in prison for bribing an IRS agent.

Stephen Jacobs, 56, of Lowell, was sentenced to nine months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.  Jacobs must report to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons by Feb. 24, 2015.  In October 2014, Jacobs pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young to bribery of a public official.

In August 2013, an IRS auditor met with Jacobs, a chiropractor, to examine numerous issues with his federal income tax forms for 2011.  During the initial interview, the auditor advised Jacobs that two $5,000 payments were not allowable deductions after Jacobs admitted that each was a payment to two different women after they accused him of touching them inappropriately during medical treatments.  Jacobs told the auditor that he paid the women because he was concerned that they would report him to the police or to the chiropractic board.  Jacobs admitted that he had begun kissing one woman’s feet while he was treating her.  He also admitted to other inappropriate contact when he was giving the second woman a massage.

Jacobs asked the IRS auditor if there was anything he could do to “just deal with this…”  When the agent said he could not “just deal with this,” Jacobs became agitated and combative, ultimately threatening the agent that he would “ruin [his] career.”

The following month, after several electronically monitored discussions regarding his non-deductible expenses, Jacobs offered to bribe the auditor in exchange for terminating the examination, saying, “. . . you want a bribe? You want me to pay you?...”  The auditor, acting under the direction of law enforcement, then accepted Jacobs’s offer of $5,000 to give Jacobs a favorable audit letter showing no additional tax for one year and a small refund for the next year.  Jacobs paid the auditor $5,000 in cash for the favorable treatment.  

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Robert O’Malley, Special Agent in Charge of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, made the announcement today. The case was prosecuted by Eugenia M. Carris of Ortiz’s Public Corruption Unit.