One thing on which federal prosecutors, defence attorneys for Nicole Burdett, and attorneys for District Attorney Jason Williams all agree is that Henry Timothy is a tax cheat. District Attorney Jason Williams is also of this opinion.
Timothy is the tax preparer who worked for Burdett and Williams’ law firm and filed fraudulent returns on their behalf.
At this point, the attorneys will argue over whether or not Williams and Burdett intentionally conspired to commit tax fraud when they asked Timothy to do their taxes.
On Tuesday, opening statements were presented by both parties in front of a jury that consisted of nine women and three men.
Mike Magner, Burdett’s attorney, claims that his client is not guilty of anything other than trusting someone who falsely claimed to be a certified public accountant (CPA).
He presented the judge with a copy of Timothy’s letterhead, on which Timothy falsely asserts that he is a certified public accountant.
He also showed Timothy’s LinkedIn page, on which he claimed to have a master’s degree in business administration from the University of New Orleans as well as a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the same institution. According to Magner, Timothy does not possess either of those degrees.
According to Williams’ defence attorney Lisa Wayne, Williams continued to keep documents well after the Internal Revenue Service required him to do so.
She stated that the jury will hear testimony regarding how Burdett and Williams would “hand over every receipt, every business item, every CC charge, a ledger, and a profit and loss statement, every year.”
“It’s about two people who trusted each other too easily because they were naive and did not know any better. “This is about the connections between people,” said Wayne.
They claim that Timothy was chosen by Williams and Burdett as a tax preparer because he was “a family friend of the Burdett’s,” and that each year he handles the tax preparation for approximately 1500 individuals.
However, the government contends that Burdette and Williams picked Timothy because they were aware that he was a tax evader who would falsify the returns without questioning them in any way.
According to the government, Williams had a tax debt of approximately 90 thousand dollars at the time Timothy was hired.
Assistant United States Attorney Kelly Uebinger said during opening statements that “Mr Timothy did their bidding and gave them no pushback.”
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She stated that the two of them had a plan to artificially inflate their expenses and that they even communicated with Timothy to figure out how they could reduce their tax liability using their Schedule C form. Because of this, the couple avoided paying thousands of dollars in taxes.
“In this particular instance, there is no room for doubt that Mr Timothy was the one who decided the “how” of what was accomplished.
He made a decision regarding which of his personal expenses he would include in Schedule C. But the question remains, why was it carried out? Uebinger stated that they did it because it was to their financial advantage to do so.
Both sides appeared to be preparing the jury for the possibility of evidence involving taxes and finances that could be confusing.
