fortinbras wrote:One of the things that the IRS demands in these prosecutions is a fairly complete mailing list, customer list, etc., from the tax evasion guru. The guru usually cooperates on this as part of a deal for a (slightly) lighter sentence. So the IRS probably has a list of many of the purchasers of CtC and it's just a matter of time.
Except that there was never any civil or criminal action against Hendrickson for any promotion activities. The civil action against Hendrickson was an erroneous refund claim, and the only injunctive relief requested was for Hendrickson to file correct returns. The criminal prosecution was based solely on Hendrickson's own tax returns.
And there's no evidence in the record that Hendrickson was ever offered (or received) any sentencing deal.
The final problem is that the only "customer list" that Hendrickson possessed would be the names of those who bought his book, and the government might not have wanted to ask for that information, or suggest that they would be looking at the tax returns of people who bought a particular book, because of the 1st Amendment implication.
If the government cared about Hendrickson's followers at all, they probably got enough information from the "victories" listed on Hendrickson's own website to be able to track them down.
(And I still wonder who was more self-destructively delusional: Hendrickson, for painting bright red bull's eyes on the backsides of his followers, or the followers who sent him the refund information knowing that he was going to publish it for the IRS to see. I guess it's got to be Hendrickson, because it's natural for the marks to believe the scam, but when the scammer believes the scam you're talking real delusion.)
