Oregon Man Gets 3.5 Years for Tax Evasion, Bank Fraud, and Identity Theft

Joel Caswell, 32, of Jacksonville, OR, was sentenced to 42 months for defrauding the IRS, lenders, and the SBA. He must repay nearly $1.2 million.

Jacksonville Man Sentenced for Multi-Year Tax and Loan Fraud Schemes

A 32-year-old man from Jacksonville, Oregon, has been sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for a series of financial crimes spanning several years, DOJ Justice News reports. Joel Matthew Caswell was ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. McShane to pay $1,198,799.83 in restitution to the IRS and to serve five years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term.

Caswell held ownership or managing interests in three logging and construction businesses that together employed roughly 40 people. Court documents show he exercised direct control over the finances of at least two of those companies and was legally responsible for withholding Social Security, Medicare, and federal income taxes from employee paychecks before remitting those funds to the IRS.

Between 2018 and 2022, Caswell withheld the required employment taxes from workers' wages but deliberately refused to forward the money to the IRS. To conceal the shortfall, he instructed customers to make payments to a separate company or directly to him, shifted business funds between accounts, and lied to IRS collection officers. The IRS assessed the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty against Caswell in 2019 in connection with the unpaid payroll taxes.

In a separate set of schemes running from 2022 through 2024, Caswell submitted fabricated financial records to a bank, a private lender, and the Small Business Administration in order to obtain loans. He filed fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications for all three of his businesses. Among the proceeds, he transferred $70,000 to fund a deposit for an ultimate frisbee tournament. Caswell also used another person's identifying information to obtain a residential mortgage.

On June 9, Caswell pleaded guilty to three counts of tax evasion, three counts of willful failure to pay over employment taxes, one count of bank fraud, one count of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft.

The investigation was conducted by IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI, and the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management. The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney J. Parker Gochenour of the Criminal Division's Tax Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Brassel for the District of Oregon.

The prosecution was announced by Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division and U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford for the District of Oregon. The Fraud Division, created on April 7, focuses on investigating and prosecuting fraud against the American public and supports the Trump administration's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance.

Source: DOJ Justice News