U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite announced that two owners of a Metairie business were charged today with filing false federal income tax returns.
ROMMEL CORDOVA, age 35 of Luling, and SAUL RAMIREZ, age 43, of Kenner, were each charged in a single Bill of Information with willfully filing false 2011 individual income tax returns. According to the Bill of Information, CORDOVA and RAMIREZ owned and operated Skill Labor Provider, Inc. (“Skill Labor”) a Metairie, Louisiana labor services business. They were each fifty-percent owners of Skill Labor and shared equally in its net income.
During calendar years 2010 and 2011, CORDOVA and RAMIREZ cashed, and caused to be cashed, checks made payable to Skill Labor and other business checks at a check cashing business in Kenner. CORDOVA and RAMIREZ caused false corporate income tax returns for Skill Labor to be prepared which did not accurately report the gross receipts, labor expenses deductions, or net income of Skill Labor. They then filed their respective individual income tax returns, which did not accurately report the amounts of business income that CORDOVA and RAMIREZ received from Skill Labor.
Upon conviction, each defendant faces a maximum penalty of three years of imprisonment, one year of supervised release, a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss caused by the offense, a $100 special assessment, and restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.
U. S. Attorney Polite reiterated that the Bill of Information is merely a charge and that the guilt of the defendants must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
U.S. Attorney Polite praised the work of the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations and Homeland Security Investigations for investigating this matter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hayden Brockett and Tax Division Trial Attorney Michael Hatzimichalis are in charge of the prosecution.