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Press Release

Old Saybrook Resident Indicted for Tax Evasion

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Connecticut

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and  Joel P. Garland, Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in New England, announced that on May 3, 2016, a federal grand jury in New Haven returned an indictment charging DAVID ADAMS, 55, of Old Saybrook, with tax evasion and filing a false tax return.  ADAMS, who was arrested on a federal criminal complaint on April 14, 2016, appeared today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert A. Richardson in Hartford and entered a plea of not guilty to the charges in the indictment.

As alleged in the indictment, ADAMS sold an online floral business in 2002, which accounted for a significant portion of $6,269,960 in taxable income he claimed on his 2002 tax return.  Although ADAMS represented to the IRS on or about August 8, 2003, that he was enclosing payment of $1,250,000, no such payment was enclosed and such tax was still outstanding as of June 2011.

The indictment further alleges that on or about June 7, 2011, ADAMS sold his partnership interest in another online floral business and received $4,708,419.20 wired into his personal bank account as part of the net proceeds owed to him as a result of the sale.  Although he knew that he owed substantial taxes on that amount, ADAMS engaged in a number of affirmative acts to conceal and attempt to conceal this income in order to evade the assessment of a tax including:  (1) hiring an accountant to prepare his 2011 taxes and then failing to give accountant complete, accurate information by failing to disclose the $4,708,419.20 in income ADAMS received in 2011; (2) providing the accountant with false information about ADAMS’s estimated tax payments for the year, telling the accountant that he had paid $220,000 when in fact, ADAMS knew he had only paid $100,000 in estimated taxes for 2011; (3) causing the accountant to prepare his 2011 tax return with false and fraudulent information; and (4) representing to an IRS revenue officer who was responsible for collecting ADAMS’s delinquent tax payments and securing ADAMS’s overdue tax returns, that he had hoped to have funds to pay down his back tax liability (including tax liability associated with the 2002 sale), but that nothing had been “panning out.”  ADAMS failed to disclose to the revenue officer that he had received $4,708,419.20 in cash less than three weeks earlier.

The indictment charges ADAMS with one count of tax evasion, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of five years, and one count of filing a false tax return, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment three years.

ADAMS owes approximately $4.6 million in back taxes, interest and penalties for tax years 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012.

U.S. Attorney Daly stressed that an indictment is not evidence of guilt.  Charges are only allegations and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

This matter has been investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan L. Wines.

Updated May 13, 2016