This afternoon, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, James C. Brewer, a Revenue Officer of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who had been assigned to the Edison, New Jersey, IRS office before his arrest, pled guilty to 12 counts of filing or preparing false tax returns, 12 counts of wire fraud, and one count of mail fraud, all in connection with a multi-year scheme to falsify his tax returns and the tax returns of others and to enrich himself with inflated refunds.  Brewer also pled guilty to committing perjury in United States Tax Court in 2012.  

At sentencing, Brewer faces a maximum term of 20 years’ imprisonment on each wire fraud and mail fraud count, a maximum of three years’ imprisonment on each tax fraud count, and a maximum of five years’ imprisonment on the perjury count.  As part of his plea agreement, Brewer agreed to make restitution to the IRS of over $70,000, plus interest and penalties, and he is subject to fines as well.

The plea was announced by Robert L. Capers, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Jonathan D. Larsen, Special Agent-in-Charge, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Newark Field Office, and Rodney A. Davis, Special Agent-in-Charge, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), Washington Field Division.  In announcing the guilty plea, Mr. Capers expressed his grateful appreciation to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada, IRS-CI, Las Vegas Field Office, and the Treasury Inspector General for TIGTA, Denver Field Division, for their assistance in this case.

According to court filings and statements made during the guilty plea, as part of a scheme to fraudulently reduce his taxable income and increase his tax refunds, Brewer failed to report any income he received for an unauthorized tax preparation business, underreported the gross receipts earned from an Internet retail business, and claimed false dependents on federal tax returns he prepared and filed on his behalf for three tax years.  Brewer also engaged in a multi-year scheme in which he prepared and filed false tax returns for others.  Brewer listed false dependents and false deductions on these returns, among other materially false information, in order to cause his clients to receive refunds to which they were otherwise not entitled or fraudulently inflate their refunds.  In doing so, Brewer listed the names and social security numbers of various individuals on those tax returns as dependents without those individuals’ authorization.  Brewer also diverted a portion of those clients’ refunds to himself, in some cases without the clients’ authorization or knowledge.  Finally, in an effort to fraudulently obtain for himself a tax credit for first time homebuyers, Brewer lied under oath about his residency when he testified in a matter in the United States Tax Court in New York, New York. 

The guilty plea was entered before the Hon. Pamela K. Chen at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Public Integrity Section.  Assistant United States Attorneys Tali Farhadian and Moira Kim Penza are in charge of the prosecution. 

The Defendant:

JAMES C. BREWER
Age:  39
Staten Island, New York

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 15 CR 209 (PKC)