U.S. Department of Justice United States Attorney Northern District of California
11th Floor, Federal Building 450 Golden Gate Avenue, Box 36055 San Francisco, California  94102 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Tel: (415) 436-7200 Fax: (415) 436-7234

February 7, 2003 The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced  that Aleck Kogan pled guilty yesterday to tax evasion.  Mr. Kogan of San Carlos, California was charged on November 26, 2002 with tax evasion for the years 1995, 1997, and 1998 in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201.  He pled guilty to all three counts. In pleading guilty Mr. Kogan admitted that he owned and operated a business called Professional Copy Service (PCS) during the year 1988 through February 1998 which was located in Sunnyvale, California.  He intentionally evaded incomes taxes owed by him for the years 1995, 1997, and 1998 by using business checks to make personal investments and pay for his personal living expenses.  He knew that his bookkeeper and return preparer would rely on the copies of business check stubs to record PCS's business expenses.  Thus, instead of identifying on the copies of check stubs that some PCS checks were used for personal purposes, he admitted disguising those checks as payments to business vendors for various business expenditures by writing names of business vendors in the payee section on the copies of the check stubs and their indicating on the copies of the check stubs that the checks were payments for various business expenses.  As a result, his return preparer was mislead by the false business information he wrote on the copies of the check stubs, and recorded his personal expenditures with PCS's business expenses on PCS's accounting journals. The information from these journals flowed through to PCS's financial statements.  At the time of tax return preparation, Mr. Kogan´s return preparer relied on PCS's financial statements that contained inflated business expense information.  The defendant admitted that he claimed over $1 millin in false business expenses on his tax returns for the years 1995, 1997, and 1998. The sentencing of Mr. Kogan is scheduled for May 15, 2003 at 2 p.m. before Judge Martin J. Jenkins in San Francisco.  The maximum statutory penalty for each count in violation of tax evasion is five years and a fine of $100,000, plus restitution.  However, the actual sentence is dictated by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of factors, and will be imposed in the discretion of the Court. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by agent of the IRS, Criminal Investigation.  Jay R. Weill is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case. A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney's Office's website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.  Related court documents and information may be found on the District Court website at www.cand.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.cand.uscourts/gov. All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be directed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs at (415)436-7181.