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U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline sentenced Roger Lee Shoffstall, 59, to 38 months in prison Friday. In addition, Shoffstall will have to pay $237,000 in back taxes and penalties, and an additional $12,000 in trial costs.
Instead of filing income tax returns, Shoffstall “mailed simulated legal process and other documents to the IRS citing frivolous anti-tax arguments,” and falsified W-4 forms for four years to keep his employer from withholding most or any of his pay, according to U.S. attorneys.
Shoffstall explained Friday that he stopped filing tax returns in the mid-90s after he spent more than $80,000 in a custody dispute with his ex-wife.
She ex fled to Arizona with the couple’s two children, and the state of Arizona initially refused to recognize court documents that would have let him take the children back to Alaska, he said.
After the court fight, he claimed that he had no money to pay taxes.
Before he was sentenced, Shoffstall wrote a memorandum to the court in which he named President Obama as a defendant and claimed that sitting presidents have “unjustly empowered” the court system to go after him since the custody dispute more than 20 years ago.
Judge Beistline called Shoffstall’s court filings “unintelligible, frivolous and completely without merit.” The judge also ordered Shoffstall to undergo a mental health evaluation while in prison.
“He doesn’t understand the law,” Beistline said. “Every time he opens his mouth he keeps digging a deep hole.”