United States Attorney Richard B. Roper
Northern District of Texas

TAX PREPARER ADMITS PERJURY

Defendant Admits Lying in Federal Grand Jury Proceedings

DALLAS - A Dallas tax preparer, Etienne Konan, appearing before U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater, pled guilty to a one-count Indictment charging him with Perjury before a Grand Jury, just days before his trial was to begin in federal court. “Any lie under oath is serious and this U.S. Attorney’s Office cannot and will not tolerate perjury,” stated U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas in announcing the plea. Konan faces a maximum statutory sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Fitzwater on October 5, 2007.

According to documents filed in the case, Konan was an employee of DSL Tax Services, LLC, a tax preparation business operating in several locations in the DFW Metroplex area. On November 9, 2006, Konan, pursuant to a subpoena, appeared before a federal Grand Jury in Dallas and answered questions relating to an ongoing investigation into criminal tax violations pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7206(2), preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns.

The factual resume filed in the case states that the Grand Jury was taking testimony from several former employees of DSL Tax Services, LLC as to how the personal income tax forms for taxpayer clients were being handled and who was entering the nonexistent education expenses in order to claim false and fraudulent education credits and nonexistent Schedule C business expenses in order to decrease taxable income. In his testimony to the Grand Jury, Konan repeatedly denied participating in the scheme to inflate taxpayer refunds. However, as part of his guilty plea to the perjury charges, Konan admitted that he knew his responses to questions posed by the federal prosecutor before the Grand Jury were false and that, in fact, he had been inputting false education credits and Schedule C expenses to get the taxpayer clients higher refunds when he knew that the taxpayer clients were not eligible for the credits and expenses.

U.S. Attorney Roper added, “The truth is what drives our judicial system, and if we cannot rely on people to tell the truth under oath, then we have no hope of making the judicial system work.”

The U.S. Attorney praised the investigative efforts of Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox.

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