vinton restaurant owner pleads guilty to harboring illegal aliens and income tax fraud
Contact: Peter Deegan
On December 14, 2010, Chan Gia Duong, 43, a restaurant owner from Vinton, Iowa, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to harbor aliens for commercial gain and filing a false 2007 tax return.
At the plea hearing, Duong admitted he conspired to hire and harbor illegal aliens at restaurants he operated with his wife, Phung Ca Long, in Vinton and Tama, Iowa. Duong also admitted he filed a false federal tax return for 2007 and substantially under-reported his income.
Long, 41 from Vinton, pled guilty on November 19, 2010, to conspiring to harbor aliens for commercial gain and making false statements to Medicaid relating to health care. At Long’s plea hearing, she admitted she conspired to hire illegal aliens at the restaurant she operated with Duong in Vinton. Long also admitted she made false statements to get $23,715.50 in health care benefits from Medicare.
Sentencings before United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after presentence reports are prepared. Duong remains free on bond previously set pending sentencing. Duong faces a possible maximum sentence of 13 years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, $200 in special assessments, 4 years of supervised release following any imprisonment, costs of prosecution and restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Patrick J. Reinert and was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service, the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, and the Vinton Police Department.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 10cr111.
