-Caveat Lector- IRS agents trail crooks on mean streets <http://www.dispatch.com:80/news/newsfea00/dec00/519694.html> Tuesday, December 5, 2000 Robert Ruth Dispatch Staff Reporter Fourteen Internal Revenue Service investigators in Columbus eschew the accountant stereotype. These agents in the Columbus IRS office's criminal investigation division carry guns and often go undercover. Like other IRS employees, they have accounting or finance backgrounds. But unlike most of their desk- bound colleagues, criminal division agents do much of their work outside the office. Recent investigations have taken them into the mean streets of Columbus following drug dealers, into seedy bars looking for crooked tavern owners, into betting parlors searching for bookmakers and into the halls of government ferreting out corrupt public officials. IRS investigators even donned overalls and picked up shovels during the investigation of a major central Ohio marijuana smuggler, recalled Ross Brown, spokesman for the division's Columbus office. Shovels were needed in 1994 to dig up the Morrow County yard of Duane Asher in Mount Gilead. He had buried much of his profits in canisters around his house. In July 1994, Asher was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to one count each of money laundering and drug trafficking. He also agreed to forfeit to the government $386,000 in cash and property he had amassed through his trafficking activities. After 28 years with the IRS, little surprises Brown, 53. "But it never entered my mind that one day I'd be digging for buried treasure," he said. "They don't put that on the IRS recruiting posters." The IRS criminal investigation division offices throughout the country are in charge of catching not only tax cheats but also money- launderers. And the money-laundering assignment means IRS agents end up looking at crimes involving significant amounts of money, such as drug trafficking, embezzlements, arsons and investment frauds. "We're not much different from other federal law-enforcement agencies," said Cromwell Handy, chief of the division's regional office in Cincinnati. "We make arrests, fill out search warrants and conduct surveillances and raids. The only difference is, we're accountants by nature. We focus on the money." IRS investigators often work with other agencies, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Columbus Police Division and the Franklin County Sheriff's Office. "We're usually overshadowed by other agencies," Handy acknowledged. Although the division receives little publicity, the prowess of its investigators is well known, and appreciated, within the law- enforcement community. "They're able to help us find things, like hidden assets, that the average deputy is not trained to find," said Franklin County Sheriff Jim Karnes. "Their expertise is needed on all sorts of investigations." U.S. Attorney Sharon J. Zealey, whose office prosecutes IRS cases, is another fan. "They follow the money," she said. "They're like bloodhounds." They also don't mind their low profile, she said. IRS investigators "don't engage in turf battles. They don't have fragile egos," Zealey said. The agents have worked behind the scenes in a number of major cases during the past five years: An investigation of corruption in eastern Ohio resulted in guilty pleas during the past two years from a Steubenville landfill owner, three environmental regulators, the son of one of the regulators and a Statehouse lobbyist. Most of the probe centered on kickbacks paid to regulators in exchange for landfill dumping permits. Albert J. DeSantis, a former millionaire developer, was convicted twice in 1996 and 1998 of investment fraud and once in 1999 of bankruptcy fraud. DeSantis once owned more private property in the Ohio State University area than anyone else. Mark Lewis of Gahanna and 10 associates were convicted last year of operating a multimillion-dollar-a-year bookmaking network that had ties to Las Vegas and cities in Pennsylvania. Frank Stavroff, Franz Schwarzbach, Robert Hetzel and Steve Dosky, four business partners, were convicted in 1997 of skimming cash from Columbus nightclubs they once owned. Robert W. Hill, a member of the family that owns Scioto Downs and Hill Distributors, and 18 associates were convicted in 1995 of operating a ring that smuggled 3 tons of marijuana, hidden in vans, to Columbus from Arizona over a five-year period. The Seawell brothers, Gary, Mark and Duanelined up more than 50 couriers who smuggled cocaine into Columbus from Mexico in the soles of tennis shoes. Although most of their confederates were captured and convicted in 1997 and 1998, the Seawells, all natives of Belize in Central America, remain fugitives. Dr. Fred O. Sakamoto of Lewis Center in Delaware County, a periodontist who operates three gum-disease clinics in Columbus, was convicted this year for failing to pay taxes on $246,499 in income in 1993. Robert Long of Ashville in Pickaway County was convicted in 1997 of leading a 30-member ring that smuggled cocaine into central Ohio from Florida for almost a decade. The IRS seized $1 million worth of assets in the case, including property Long owned in Hocking County, Miami and Halifax, Va. Brian A. Patten and Robert L. Grden, president and vice president, respectively, of a Hilliard medical supply business, were convicted in 1997 of bilking $300,000 from federal employee health insurance companies. The two talked handicapped people into buying unneeded motorized scooters, adjustable beds and other medical equipment. A federal grand jury recently indicted Michael A. Taylor of Gahanna and his brother, Benjamin G. Taylor of Reynoldsburg, accusing them of operating a travel- coupon scam that cheated 800 customers out of $2.2 million. The case is pending. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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