Virginia Couple Sentenced for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States

WASHINGTON – A husband and wife from Mathews County, Va., were sentenced today for conspiring to impair and obstruct the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the ascertainment and assessment of federal income taxes from 2001 through 2010, the Justice Department and the IRS announced.   John Scott Miles was sentenced to 30 months in prison and Kathryn Charles Miles was sentenced to 20 months in prison.   Both were sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $215,591.27 in restitution.

John Miles and Kathryn Miles were charged in October 2010 and pleaded guilty in March 2011 before U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson in Norfolk, Va., who sentenced them today.

At their plea hearings, Kathryn Miles and John Miles admitted to earning taxable income as the owners and operators of a construction business named “Scotts Construction” and “KCM Construction & Design.”   Kathryn Miles also admitted to earning taxable income as a nurse at various Virginia hospitals.   The Miles’ joined American Rights Litigators, a business they knew sold and promoted tax avoidance methods, in 2001 and maintained an annual membership.   Kathryn Miles admitted that, in 2005 and 2006, she submitted six tax returns to the IRS in which she falsely claimed that she earned no wages and in which she did not disclose the operation of her construction business.   She submitted falsified tax documents with each tax return.   John Miles admitted that he did not file tax returns during the time of the conspiracy.

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division John A. DiCicco commended the investigative efforts of the IRS agents involved in this case, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Samuels and Tax Division Trial Attorney Justin Gelfand, who are prosecuting this case on behalf of the United States.