CALIFORNIA TAX-SCAM PROMOTER ARRESTED
FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT

Bogus Trust Promoter And Return Preparer Failed To Obey Court Orders Requiring
Him To Turn Over Customer List

WASHINGTON D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that U.S. Marshals arrested James A. Mattatall of Harbor City, California last Friday. The action resulted from a federal judge’s order last August finding Mattatall in contempt of court for failing to obey a court order entered last April. The April order, a permanent injunction, required Mattatall to give the Justice Department a list of the names, addresses, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers of his customers. The August order stated that if Mattatall did not provide his customer list within 24 days he would be incarcerated until he turned it over.

Mattatall is scheduled to appear today before U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson.

“The Justice Department is committed to shutting down the tax scams that cheat the federal treasury and the honest taxpayers who pay into it,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “Tax scam promoters who disobey court orders to halt their illegal activities and turn over their customer lists risk serious consequences.”

More information about this case (including copies of the injunction order entered against Mattatall and the later order holding him in contempt of court) is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv04242.htm. More information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division and its tax-promoter injunction program are available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/index.html and http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2004.htm

###

04-699