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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TAX
FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2014 (202) 514-2007
WWW.JUSTICE.GOV TTY (866) 544-5309
MICHIGAN WOMAN CONVICTED OF CRIMINAL CONTEMPT
WASHINGTON – A federal jury in Detroit convicted a Commerce Township, Michigan, woman of criminal contempt based on violating an injunction that required her to comply with various legal tax obligations, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today.
Doreen Hendrickson was convicted of criminal contempt based on her violation of an injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds in May 2007. Hendrickson failed to file amended tax returns or repay the tax refunds as ordered by the judge, and filed an additional false tax return for 2008 on which she falsely claimed that wages she earned as a movie extra were not taxable. For more information about the injunction, please see the previously issued press release. She will be sentenced on Nov. 20.
According to court filings and evidence presented at trial, Hendrickson and her husband, Peter Hendrickson, filed federal income tax returns for the years 2002 and 2003 on which they falsely claimed they earned zero wages. Based on these false returns, the IRS issued the Hendricksons more than $20,000 in income tax refunds that they were not entitled to receive. In 2006, the department’s Tax Division sued the Hendricksons to recover these refunds. As part of that case, Judge Edmunds ordered the Hendricksons to file corrected amended tax returns for 2002 and 2003 that reported all of their income, and to repay their fraudulently obtained refunds to the IRS. Judge Edmunds also barred the Hendricksons from filing additional false tax returns.
The Hendricksons’ false 2002 and 2003 income tax returns were the subject of a prior criminal prosecution. In 2009, Hendrickson’s husband, Peter Hendrickson, was convicted of filing multiple false income tax returns, including the 2002 and 2003 returns that he filed jointly with his wife. According to evidence presented at trial, these tax returns were based on the false and frivolous theories that Peter Hendrickson promoted in his book, “Cracking the Code,” and on his website, Lost Horizons. Doreen Hendrickson filed her false 2008 income tax return while her husband was indicted for filing false tax returns.
The case was investigated by special agents of IRS – Criminal Investigation, and prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Melissa S. Siskind, Jeffrey B. Bender and Jeffrey A. McLellan of the Tax Division.
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