SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Kamran Azizi pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the United States, announced United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch and Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, Special Agent in Charge Michael T. Batdorf.
According to the plea agreement, during 2005 through 2008, Azizi, 59, of Danville, was responsible for compiling donations made to Maktab Tarighe Oveyssi Shahmaghsoudi (MTO), a Sufi Islamic organization with several centers in the Northern District of California. Azizi acknowledged that during that period, with the assistance of his co-conspirator, Hedyeh Shoar, aka Hedyeh Azizi (to whom he was married until 2007), he kept more than $250,000 of members’ donations to MTO for his own benefit. Azizi and Shoar then worked together to hide this income from the United States by, among other things, concealing it from the individual who prepared their federal income tax returns, and signing and filing tax returns which omitted this income.
A federal grand jury indicted Azizi with one count of conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, and two counts of filing a false tax return, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1). Pursuant to today’s agreement, Azizi pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count. Azizi is scheduled to appear on June 23, 2017, before the Honorable Vince Chhabria, U.S. District Judge, for sentencing.
The maximum statutory penalty for the conspiracy violation is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In addition, a term of supervised release may be imposed; however, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court only after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael G. Pitman is prosecuting the case. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation.