TP gets home detention for phony papers

[The Observer]

Mail Tribune

May 01, 2007

Local Man Convicted of Faking IRS Papers
By Sarah Lemon

A Medford man was sentenced Monday to home detention for filing false documents with the Internal Revenue Service to harass adversaries, including tax collectors and a Medford police officer who ticketed him.

Kenneth Eugene Bozarth, 61, must serve six months' home detention for filing false tax documents under penalty of perjury, U.S. District Court Judge Owen Panner ruled Monday. A federal jury on Jan. 9 convicted Bozarth, a member of a conservative citizens group, Oregon Citizens Alliance.
Intending to retaliate against adversaries, Bozarth in 1999 and 2000 falsely reported that he transferred $2 million in currency to Medford police officer Nathan Banry, California tax collector Emma Rock, IRS employee Dennis Parizek and Medford Safeway employee Rick Deates. Bozarth filed a fraudulent IRS form 8300 — used to report cash payments over $10,000 — on each victim's behalf, sparking an IRS investigation. All three government workers were acting in their official capacities when they ran afoul of Bozarth, the jury found.

"He was on the wrong side of their decisions," U.S. Attorney William Fitzgerald told Panner Monday.

Bozarth fraudulently filed a form 8300 in retaliation against Banry almost six years after the officer cited him for trespassing at the Rogue Valley Mall. Bozarth was barred by a 1994 court injunction from collecting signatures at the mall for proposed ballot measures on issues ranging from mandatory prison sentences to hourly wages.

Rock, head of the Santa Clara County tax collector's office, had attempted in 1987 to collect an unpaid fine from Bozarth, who also "caused her and her staff to fear for their safety," according to prosecutors' trial memorandum. In November 1999, Bozarth signed and filed a form 8300 stating he had paid Rock $2 million.

Bozarth also instigated an IRS investigation of one of its own employees — Parizek, who received a letter from Bozarth in 2000 challenging the authority of the IRS to collect income tax. Two months after Parizek wrote back, informing Bozarth that his arguments previously had been rejected in court, Bozarth reported he transferred $2 million in currency to Parizek.
Four months after Deates, a supervisor at a Medford Safeway store, declined to cash two government checks for him, Bozarth reported a $2 million currency payment to the grocery store employee.

Bozarth told Panner Monday that he filed the documents as an exercise of his freedoms and never intended to harm anyone. The judge characterized the acts as a "considerable inconvenience" to the four victims before ordering Bozarth confined to the Medford home where he lives with his elderly mother. Fitzgerald had argued for a 10-month prison sentence.
In two similar cases, Medford resident Duane Harry Panter, 53, and 58-year-old Michael Peter Stemac, of Trail, await federal court dates. Panter and Stemac also were charged with falsely reporting under penalty of perjury that government officials and others had engaged in suspicious currency transactions. They, too, intended to harass and retaliate against adversaries, Fitzgerald said, adding there is no evidence that link Bozarth, Panter and Stemac.

Panter, who pleaded guilty, is scheduled to hear his sentence on June 7 in District Court. The subject of a February 2006 newspaper Crime Stoppers bulletin, Stemac was detained after violating his pretrial release conditions and was set for a courtroom conference today.

[Demosthenes]

sentenced Monday to home detention

Bozarth was barred by a 1994 court injunction from collecting signatures ... on ... mandatory prison sentences

I wonder if he was for or against mandatory prison sentences.

[Kimokeo]

Punishment does not fit the crime. Home detention? Sounds like another couple we've been watching...and they weren't even convicted yet.