11/30/09 Bend

By Doug Johnson

It's the latest controversy surrounding Republican Gubernatorial Candidate and political activist Bill Sizemore. Monday the Oregon Attorney General's office announced a grand jury has charged Sizemore and his wife Cindy with tax evasion for failing to file returns in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

"We can indict them on three counts of failure to file for purposes of evasion, tax evasion," says Sean Riddell with the Attorney General's Office.

That's something that Sizemore admits is true, but claims he and his wife had good reason. He tells KOHD News, in an unrelated racketeering lawsuit from 2002, a Multnomah County judge ruled a copy of any returns filed by the Sizemores, to go to the teacher's unions.

"If this judge's order is obeyed, we literally have to give our biggest political opponents detailed copies of all of our personal tax returns," Sizemore says.

Sizemore says he and his wife have paid both the state and federal governments twenty five thousand dollars per year for 2006 and 07. Because of that, Sizemore says he and his wife are not guilty of tax evasion. He claims the move by the Attorney General's office is political.

"In order to be a tax evader, you've got to be trying to evade the tax; well we weren't trying to evade the tax we mailed the money in. And John Kroger knows this, this is just a way for him to do more of what his public employee union masters tell him to do," says Sizemore.

The state says it's too late for the Sizemores to avoid criminal prosecution, since they failed to file before the tax amnesty period ended on November 19th. Both could face a maxium of five years in jail, and up to a one hundred and twenty five thousand dollar fine. 

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11/30/09

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger today announced that the Oregon Department of Justice has filed tax evasion charges against Bill and Cindy Sizemore.

The Sizemores were each indicted by a grand jury on three counts of Oregon Personal Income Tax Evasion. The indictment alleges that Bill and Cindy Sizemore each failed to file tax returns for the tax years 2006, 2007 and 2008.

The indictments were issued by the grand jury on October 27, but not unsealed until after the state tax amnesty period ended Nov. 19. Late last week, Oregon Department of Revenue officials confirmed that the Sizemores did not seek to take advantage of the tax amnesty, which was an opportunity for taxpayers to file or amend tax returns in exchange for a waiver of civil penalties and partial interest.

This is the second tax evasion case filed by the Oregon Department of Justice since the end of the amnesty period. On Nov. 20, two counts of Oregon Personal Income Tax Evasion and two counts of Unlawful Manufacture and Delivery of Marijuana were filed against Michael Troy Dyer of West Salem.

All criminal defendants are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Evidence in support of the charges against Bill and Cindy Sizemore was uncovered during a civil lawsuit against entities controlled by Bill Sizemore. That lawsuit established that Bill Sizemore set up a sham charity to hide political contributions to various ballot measure campaigns with which he was associated. As a result of that case, Sizemore was banned from managing any charity in an order signed by the court in May 2009. The Oregon Department of Justice's Charitable Activities Section, which handled the civil lawsuit, referred the potential criminal charges to the Department of Justice's Criminal Justice Division earlier this year. The Criminal Justice Division completed the tax investigation and will handle the newly indicted case in court.

"It is a written policy that any allegations of criminal wrongdoing unearthed during a Department of Justice civil investigation be referred to the department's Criminal Justice Division for possible prosecution," said Sean Riddell, the head of the Criminal Justice Division. "We cannot ignore evidence of criminal conduct. We were obligated to follow up on evidence of tax evasion that arose during the civil case."

Attorney General Kroger said that several other potential tax evasion cases are under investigation.

Attorney General John Kroger leads the Oregon Department of Justice. The Department's mission is to fight crime and fraud, protect the environment, improve child welfare, and defend the rights of all Oregonians.