WASHINGTON – East Aurora, N.Y., chiropractor and tax defier John Weisberg was sentenced by U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh Scott in Buffalo to 21 months in prison, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service announced.  The court also ordered that Weisberg, as a condition of supervised release, cooperate with the IRS in filing tax returns and paying back taxes that he has not paid.  A federal jury convicted Weisberg of three counts of failure to file tax returns following a trial in February 2008.

Evidence introduced during trial showed that Weisberg became a member-client of a Florida-based tax defier organization known as American Rights Litigators in 1997. 

 ARL, formed and operated by Eddie Ray Kahn, promoted multiple tax fraud schemes.  Weisberg purchased an ARL service by which ARL-affiliated lawyers and accountants, on Weisberg’s behalf, responded to IRS notices seeking his returns.  The letters to the IRS advanced false and frivolous tax defier claims and requests purporting to set forth reasons why the defendant was not required to file returns or pay taxes.  Weisberg stopped filing tax returns in 1995 and did not pay any federal income taxes between 1995 and 2003.  The tax loss associated with Weisberg’s failure to file is approximately $144,000.

Despite Weisberg’s claims during trial that he had relied in good faith upon the advice of ARL, the evidence at trial showed that Weisberg was warned of his legal duty to file returns not only by the IRS, but also by Buffalo-area accountants and attorneys.  Evidence at trial also showed that Weisberg employed other tax schemes, including an offshore bank account in the Bahamas, to evade the IRS.