Former District of Columbia Police Officer Sentenced to Prison for Obstructing Internal Revenue Service

Filed False Documents with the IRS and Metropolitan Police Department

A former Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer and resident of Glenarden, Maryland, was sentenced to 11 months in prison today after a federal jury in the District of Columbia convicted him in October 2015 of corruptly endeavoring to impair and impede the due administration of the internal revenue laws, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

Ishmeal Heru-Bey, formerly known as Jamal Adams, failed to file timely federal income tax returns for the years 2005 through 2012 to report his MPD wages and other income to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  Between 2006 and 2010, Heru-Bey submitted three IRS Forms W-4 to the MPD on which he falsely claimed that he was exempt from federal income tax withholding.  These false forms caused his employer to withhold little or no federal income taxes from his wages during that period.  After Heru-Bey was indicted for tax crimes in March 2015, he also filed false income tax returns for the years 2011 through 2014 on which he claimed to have incurred expenses relating to his job with the MPD, including expenses for the use of his personal vehicle, meals and entertainment, uniforms and dry cleaning.  Heru-Bey was on paid administrative leave from the police force during those years and did not incur the expenses he claimed on his tax returns.  At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who also presided over the trial, found that Heru-Bey intended to cause a loss to the IRS between $40,000 and $100,000. 

In addition to the prison term, Heru-Bey was also ordered to serve one year of supervised release and pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $45,712.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo thanked special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who investigated the case and Trial Attorneys Jeffrey A. McLellan and Melissa S. Siskind of the Tax Division, who prosecuted the case.