Five Convicted of Tax Evasion and Abusive Trust Schemes

Five persons associated with Innovative Financial Consultants, also known as IFC, were convicted in Phoenix, Arizona on June 29, 2006. IFC Consultants were sentenced for promoting abusive trusts and tax evasion that caused a reported loss of up to &7M. Sentence were,

• Dennis Poseley was sentenced to 84 months in prison and fined $175,000 for conspiracy to defraud the government and willful failure to file tax returns;
• Patricia Ensign was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $100,000 for willful failure to file tax returns;
• David Trepas was sentenced to 60 months in prison for defrauding the government and willful failure to file tax returns;
• Rachel McElhinney was sentenced to 16 months in prison for willful failure to file tax returns;
• Keith Priest was sentenced to 18 months in prison for willful failure to file tax returns.

Two people were acquitted on other charges and the jury was not able to reach a verdict as to the conspiracy charge against McElhinney.

Government evidence provided that the defendants had sole over 2,000 “pure trusts’ and claimed falsely that these trusts could legally dodge taxes by placing all income and assets into them. There was a reported “onshore plan” and an “offshore plan.” The evidence revealed that the defendants charged IFC customers approximately $10,500 for the offshore trust package and approximately $4,154 for the onshore trust package. Trial evidence showed that IFC was a prominent vendor with the Institute of Global Prosperity (IGP). At offshore seminars hosted by IGP, defendant Dennis Poseley promoted IFC's trust schemes to thousands of people.