O'Dowd was convicted by a federal jury's verdict on January 9, 2003 of two counts of willfully making and subscribing a false U.S. Individual Income Tax Return for the 1993 and 1994 income tax years.

During the trial evidence presented proved that O'Dowd operated a law book store known as Bookshelf II, located at 1203 Caroline St., Houston, Texas. Evidence presented proved that in his 1993 and 1994 income tax returns, O'Dowd reported gross receipts from the bookstore of $77,200.00 in 1993 and $65,842.00 in 1994. However, an analysis of the business' bank records presented to the jury during trial proved that the true gross receipts of the bookstore for the two years in question were more than four times the amounts reported by O'Dowd. Specifically, testimony during the trial proved that in 1993 and 1994, the Bookstore II had gross receipts in the amount of $377,671 and $328,000, respectively.

The case was investigated by special agents of the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigations and prosecuted by AUSA Charles J. Escher.

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