Tampa, Florida - The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit yesterday affirmed the convictions of John Stanton, III, on charges that he had obstructed the administration of the Internal Revenue Laws and had failed to file tax returns for himself and for his companies, Florida Engineered Construction Products (FECP) and Denouement Strategies. The Court also upheld Stanton’s ten-year sentence for those convictions.
Stanton was the president of FECP, which operated under the name “Cast Crete" and which produced and sold tens of millions of dollars of precast concrete products annually. Despite the fact that FECP reaped handsome annual revenues and paid out tens of millions of dollars to Stanton and others, Stanton failed to file tax returns for FECP for several years and filed returns containing inaccurate information for several other years. He also failed to file tax returns for himself for 2005 and 2007, despite having received millions from FECP during that period. When the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) attempted to investigate FECP’s tax obligations, Stanton provided an investigator with false and misleading documents and information. The District Court found that, as a result of Stanton’s crimes, the IRS had lost more than $50 million in tax revenues-more than $100 million including interest and penalties.
On appeal, Stanton challenged the sufficiency of the evidence at trial, the constitutionality of the statute prohibiting his attempt to obstruct the administration of the Internal Revenue Laws, numerous District Court rulings, and various aspects of his ten-year sentence. The Eleventh Circuit rejected each of these arguments, “conclud[ing] that all of the issues in this appeal lack merit."
Stanton is currently serving a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.
This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigations. It was prosecuted in the District Court by Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Mueller and former Assistant United States Attorney Robert Monk. The appeal was handled by Assistant United States Attorneys Linda Julin McNamara and Todd B. Grandy.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
