FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	April 30, 2012d
Docket #: 1:10-cr-00150 AWI

FRESNO, Calif. — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that today Chief United States District Judge Anthony W. Ishii sentenced both Elisabeth Ann Bossingham, 53, and Brett Allen Bossingham, 51, to four years and three months in prison. The Bossinghams were taken into custody at the close of the sentencing hearing.

The Bossinghams, of Woodlake, were convicted by a jury on February 9, 2012 after a two-day trial. They were found guilty of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States by impeding the Internal Revenue Service in its ability to assess and collect income tax and four counts each of tax evasion.

According to testimony presented at trial, the Bossinghams properly filed tax returns between 1997 and 1999. In 2000, however, the Bossinghams began to actively conceal their income from the IRS. They used an offshore bank account and engaged in a “warehouse banking” scheme where depositors pool their money in a single bank account to avoid IRS detection. They created false liens against their property in order to “strip” the equity from the property so as to frustrate the IRS in any future collection efforts. The Bossinghams also did not file tax returns from 2000 through 2003, and when each of them did finally file four tax returns in 2007, the returns were demonstrably false.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Mark E. Cullers and Henry Z. Carbajal III prosecuted the case.

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