Monument Man Sentenced to Prison for Tax Fraud

A health care products business owner, who attempted to evade the payment of more than $450,000 in income taxes, was sentenced in federal court in Denver, Colorado, today by U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Moore to 36 months in prison, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division. 

According to court documents, in April 2010, Craig Walcott was notified by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that he owed taxes and penalties for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007, totaling $458,569.  After receiving this notice, Walcott took a series of steps to prevent the IRS from collecting those taxes.  He recorded fictitious deeds of trust against four properties he owned, so that they would be unattractive targets for IRS tax liens, and transferred other properties he owned to nominee entities to make it appear to the IRS that he no longer had an ownership interest in the properties. Walcott also filed false tax returns for the tax years 2005- 2007 that underreported his income for those years.

Walcott pleaded guilty on Nov. 27, 2018, to one count of attempting to evade the payment of his federal income taxes. 

In addition to prison, Walcott was ordered to pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $628,733 and to serve three years of supervised release after the completion of his sentence. Walcott was remanded into custody today.

The case was investigated by special agents of the IRS-Criminal Investigation. Tax Division Assistant Chief Andrew Kameros and Trial Attorney Lee Langston prosecuted the case.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found on the division’s website.