IRS Nabs NC Physician for Tax Scam

A North Carolina family doctor has been sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay more than $600,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for obstructing tax laws and failing to pay income taxes for at least four years, the Justice Department and IRS say.

A federal jury in 2009 convicted Rodney K. Justin, MD, from Woodleaf, NC, of four felony counts of obstructing internal revenue laws by sending bogus "Bills of Exchange" to the Treasury Department in purported payment of more than $350,000 in taxes. The jury also convicted Justin of willful failure to file tax returns for the tax years 2001 through 2004.

Federal prosecutors showed at trial that Justin had not filed a tax return since 1997, even though he had earned more than $200,000 each year from 2001 through 2004. Justin sent letters and bogus returns to the IRS advancing false and frivolous "tax defier" claims purporting to explain why he didn’t have to pay taxes. The IRS repeatedly warned Justin that his claims were frivolous and told him of his legal duty to file returns and pay taxes.

From 1998 through early 2004, Justin was a client at Guiding Light of God Ministries, also known as American Rights Litigators, formerly of Mount Dora, FL. The evidence showed that Justin purchased the four fictitious "Bills of Exchange" he submitted in purported payment of income taxes from ARL.

In August 2004, a federal district judge permanently banned ARL and two of its promoters from the sale of a nationwide tax scam. In April 2008, a federal court in Florida sentenced two promoters of ARL and a client—actor Wesley Snipes—to prison for tax offenses. In August, three ARL promoters were sentenced to 10 years in prison, and ARL founder Eddie Ray Kahn, got a 20-year sentence.

The North Carolina Medical Board in September suspended Justin for 12 months, but stayed the suspension, and noted that the criminal prosecution "relates solely to Dr. Justin's income tax matters and does not related to any medical care that Dr. Justin has rendered."

Justin's sentence was imposed by US District Chief Judge James A. Beaty Jr. in Winston-Salem, NC.