CINCINNATI PRIVATE INVESTIGATION COMPANY OWNER SENTENCED FOR CONSPIRACY, TAX EVASION
Public Affairs Officer
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CINCINNATI –The owner and operator of a Cincinnati private investigation company known as Business Intelligence, Inc. (BII), James Simon, 66, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to two years of home confinement as part of a five-year probation, and ordered to pay $385,967.97 in restitution for skimming more than $1 million from the company and evading the assessment of taxes on that income.
Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and Darryl Williams, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS) announced the sentence imposed today by Senior U.S. District Judge Herman J. Weber.
Simon pleaded guilty on February 28, 2012 to one count of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy. Court documents show that between 2003 and 2008 Simon skimmed at least $1,047,656.23 from BII and failed to report the money as income to the Internal Revenue Service, causing a tax loss to the IRS of $385,967.81.
Simon used the money skimmed from BII for personal expenses and to gamble on at least one riverboat casino in Indiana. He then enlisted two other individuals who worked for him to help conceal the amount of gambling proceeds he won from the IRS. Those two individuals, Henry Hauck, 58, Cincinnati and Daniel Tidball, 52, Cincinnati each pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of conspiracy and are scheduled to be sentenced on August 14, 2012 and September 19, 2012, respectively.
“He took numerous steps to avoid detection by the IRS at financial institutions, with his bookkeeper and employees, and at the casinos, to include circumventing reporting requirements and lying to those close to him,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica W. Knight wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court.
Simon also accepted payments from clients in cash or cashier’s checks and deposited them into his own personal bank accounts.
Stewart commended the continuing investigation by IRS agents and the prosecution of the case by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica W. Knight.
