Posted on 08/16/2003 11:32:29 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Jury finds Castro guilty of fraud
BY ADRIANA ARCE Times staff writer
A federal jury found a Laredo tax preparer guilty Friday of 15 counts of fraudulently reporting information to the Internal Revenue Service on behalf of clients that included teachers, a vice principal and a bank employee.
After reviewing a week's worth of evidence involving several years of itemized deductions, expenses and fraudulent claims, the jury deliberated for two and one-half hours before returning the guilty verdict against Sandra Luz Castro.
Following a 1999 IRS investigation, the government charged Castro with multiple counts of aiding clients in reporting a total of more than $1.1 million of fictitious claims on their income tax returns.
The false reports resulted in thousands of dollars in unentitled income tax refunds, which the taxpayers have reportedly returned.
Castro now faces a maximum of 45 years in prison, plus a fine of $3.7 million.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dixie Morrow and Arthur Jones began presenting the case last Thursday, before U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison.
The government provided the federal jury of 11 women and four men with hours of testimony of taxpayers who claimed they were unaware of Castro's scheme.
In the government's final arguments to the jury, Jones successfully convinced members of the panel that the defendant was nothing but a "con artist."
"She conned her clients, she conned the United States government and now she is trying to con all of you," Jones explained.
"Don't let her do that," he urged.
He reminded each of the jurors of the significance and impact Castro's case has on the government as a whole.
"There are people in the Persian Gulf fighting for our country and some believe they should be getting better benefits or be getting paid more...We all know where that money comes from," Jones pointed out.
"Everyone has to pay their fair share of taxes," he emphasized.
The members of the jury listened as the prosecutor provided them with Castro's motive to scheme against her clients' will.
"She got a cut, it's crystal clear" he explained.
He argued that much evidence showed that Castro charged clients 10 percent of their income tax returns, giving her an incentive to produce larger refunds for the taxpayers.
Jones further argued that even though receipts and other documents proved Castro was out to gain a percentage of refunds, she continuously lied about that fact.
"If she lied about that, then she lied about everything else," Jones said.
He used one of the defense's main arguments against Castro, who claimed she was not certified and could not be blamed for inaccurately preparing taxes. He said that she still told her clients she knew what she was doing, because she claimed she took accounting and income tax classes. She made them trust her, because she is a con artist, he argued.
Defense attorney Arturo Villarreal stuck to his defense and argued that his client was incompetent and was bound to make mistakes.
"That doesn't make her a criminal," he told the jury.
"Doctors leave sponges in patients and they're not forced to come here to explain to a judge. They aren't criminally charged," Villarreal said, adding that everyone makes mistakes.
He not only blamed his client's lack of knowledge in finance for the blatant errors produced on the taxpayers' returns, but also blamed her vigorous schedule for causing sleep depravation.
"You saw her college transcript, she worked part-time, took her kids to school and did this on the side," Villarreal said, adding it was a dangerous routine.
He told them to ask themselves what kind of scheme Castro was trying to pull off when she allowed each of the income tax returns to be mailed with her signature and social security number.
"She might as well have signed her own arrest warrant," he said.
He further pointed out that many of Castro's mistakes incriminated her close friends.
"Why would she intentionally do that to her friends?" he told the jury to ask themselves.
In the government's rebuttal argument, Morrow provided the jury with an explanation.
Morrow explained that submitting false information pertaining to friends would make it easier for Castro to cover up her scheme.
"This is not a case of math computation errors," Morrow said.
The defendant took a chance and a gamble on a scheme that finally came to a halt, the attorney said, before she asked the jury to find Castro guilty on all 15 counts.
Castro, a mother of four children, should be sentenced within the next three months following a pre-sentence investigation.
08/16/03
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