Hodgenville man sentenced to 37 months for tax evasion

Richard Gilbert of Hodgenville was sentenced to 37 months imprisonment Monday for one count of tax evasion and one count of impeding and obstructing the Internal Revenue Service, according to United States Attorney David J. Hale of the Western District of Kentucky.

Gilbert was convicted after a five-day jury trial in May on both counts of an indictment against him.

The United States presented evidence that Gilbert owed approximately $227,000 in federal income taxes for the years 1999 through 2003 because he failed to file returns for those years. After penalties and interest, Gilbert owed approximately $316,742.83 to the Internal Revenue Service.

The United States also presented evidence that Gilbert committed multiple acts to avoid paying federal income taxes. For example, Gilbert titled his Hodgenville home in the name of a bogus trust  to conceal his ownership and control of the property. In addition, while operating a chiropractic business, Gilbert refused to accept payments by check from insurance companies in order to avoid the filing of IRS Form 1099.  Gilbert also filed a number of documents with the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the IRS that made it fraudulently appear as if liens were on his assets, when that was not true. Gilbert also mailed fraudulent bills of exchange, which appeared to be checks, to the IRS in attempts to fraudulently induce them to accept them as payment. While dealing with the IRS Collections Division, Gilbert concealed his bank accounts by wrongfully stating he did not use bank accounts, even though he had three open bank accounts, according to a news release.

Authorities also said Gilbert used a bank account that was in the name of a trust to pay his personal living expenses and fraudulently returned several documents to the IRS that he stamped with words to the effect that his tax obligations had been dealt with.