PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT: James K.Vines
United StatesAttorney
Darryl Stewart
Assistant U.S.Attorney
CLARKSVILLE LAWYER PLEADS GUILTY TO TAX CHARGES
Nashville, TN - July 23, 2002 - James K. Vines, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, announced today that Noel Reese Bagwell, Jr., plead guilty to failure to file federal income tax returns for calendar years 1994, 1995 and 1996. U.S. Magistrate Judge Juliet Griffin accepted Bagwell's plea and found him guilty of all three counts of an indictment filed August 8, 2001.
IRS-Criminal Investigation Special Agent Dennis Holenstein testified during the plea hearing that Bagwell had not filed tax returns for 1992 through 1996. According to Holenstein’s testimony, Bagwell had gross income of approximately $1,282,718 for calendar years 1994 through 1996, and he was required to file an income tax return for each of those years. After allowing for appropriate personal and business deductions, Bagwell's failure to file those returns resulted in a criminal tax loss to the government of approximately $57,357.
Holenstein also testified that Bagwell had prior contacts with the Internal Revenue Service regarding his failure to file and pay taxes. In June 1992, Bagwell made a payment of approximately $131,360 to secure the release of a federal tax lien filed in Montgomery County for federal taxes owed for the years 1988, 1989, and 1990.
"People who intentionally fail to file a required federal tax return subject themselves to severe civil and criminal penalties," stated Clayton L. Cooper, Special Agent in Charge of the Nashville Field Office for IRS-Criminal Investigation. "Our tax system treats this offense seriously since willful non-compliance increases the tax burden for the vast majority of our citizens that fully comply in meeting their tax obligations," Cooper said.
Bagwell is scheduled to be sentenced on October 11, 2002.
This investigation was conducted by IRS-Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Darryl Stewart prosecuted the case for the government.