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MICHAEL JORDAN'S DREAM TEAM DID BETTER THAN THIS

April 26, 2007

Pleading guilty to federal taxes can't be fun, but it has to be an especially bitter pill in this case:

WASHINGTON – A former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) district director, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the United States through his involvement in a tax fraud scheme promoted by the Topeka, Kansas-based “Renaissance, The Tax People, Inc.,” the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service announced. During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia in Kansas City, Kan., Jesse Ayala Cota admitted defrauding the U.S. Treasury of more than $1.3 million and to earning more than $300,000 from his participation in the scheme.

We've mentioned "The Tax People" before. It was a multi-level marketing operation that encouraged people to evade taxes by recruiting other people to recruit other people, etc., to tell people they could do the recruiting while deducting personal expenses as business expenses in the process.

"Mr. Cota was the director of Renaissance’s so-called ‘Tax Dream Team,’" said Eric Melgren, U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas. "Renaissance used Cota’s credentials as a former district director for the Internal Revenue Service to lend the tax fraud scheme legitimacy and to induce people to join and to remain members."

Renaissance used Cota’s IRS credentials, including his prior service as District Director, to induce people to join Renaissance, to assuage their concerns, and to keep them as members.

Dream team? If the original Dream Team performed like this, they'd have lost to Angola.

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