Uncle Sam Disappointed in Ph.D. Economist

MANHATTAN (CN) - A Ph.D. economist put his learning to less than noble uses by defrauding Uncle Sam of $500,000 in income taxes over 22 years, federal prosecutors said.

David Gilmartin, 68, was arrested Monday in Phelan, Calif., where he lives, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. He lived in New York until 2006.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Gilmartin used a variety of ruses to duck his taxes "for every year between 1989 and 2010," including fraudulently claiming to be exempt from taxes, "providing someone else's Social Security number to his employer and representing that it was his; refusing to provide an employer with his Social Security number, citing a purported 'religious objection,' in an attempt to prevent the employer from withholding taxes; causing checks paid to him as compensation to be made payable to a finance company, in order to pay down a personal line of credit and to prevent the IRS from seizing, pursuant to bank levies, the funds paid to him as compensation; causing checks that were paid to him as compensation to be cashed against a personal bank account rather than be deposited; and causing checks paid to him as compensation to be endorsed directly to a bank rather than deposited in a personal bank account, in order to pay outstanding balances on his credit card with that bank and to prevent the IRS from seizing, pursuant to bank levies, the funds paid to him as compensation."

Gilmartin is charged with tax evasion, obstructing the IRS, failing to file a tax return and ducking taxes. They are punishable, respectively, by 5, 3, 1 and 1 years in prison.

Uncle Sam Disappointed in Ph.D. Economist

Read the Top 8

Additional Reads