Man Pleads Guilty to Tax Evasion

HOUSTON – A local man has admitted to willfully attempting to evade or defeat his individual income taxes, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez and Special Agent in Charge D. Richard Goss of IRS – Criminal Investigation (CI).

According to the plea agreement, Daniel Bart Thedinger willfully filed false joint U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns for years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, failing to report a total of more than $700,000 of income for those years. That income was the result of funds he had diverted from two business partnerships over the years to pay personal expenses, such as private school tuition for his children, renovating his personal residence, vacations and personal training.

During 2012, Thedinger wrote six checks for $15,000 each to a consultant in England and created a false invoice, allegedly from the consultant, to disguise the checks as payments for business expenses. The partnerships claimed the diverted funds as business expenses which reduced the true amounts of income from the partnerships for those years that flowed to Thedinger and were included on Schedules E attached to his IRS forms 1040.

Thedinger has agreed to pay $216,871 in restitution to the IRS to be applied to the additional U.S. individual income taxes he owes for the four years.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal is set to impose sentencing on Sept. 7, 2017, at which time Thedinger faces up to five years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine. He was permitted to remain on bond pending that hearing.

IRS-CI conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles J. Escher is prosecuting the case.