All of car dealer/developer James Pflueger’s co-defendants in a tax evasion case pending in federal court have pleaded guilty.
Accountant Dennis Duban, who prepared tax returns for Pflueger, his companies and his son, Charles Alan Pflueger, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the IRS and to assisting in the filing of a false tax return.
He will be sentenced April 13, 2013 by U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi. U.S. Attorney Florence Nakakuni said Duban faces up to five years in prison and $500,000 in fines.
Duban is a Southern California certified public accountant.
According to Nakakuni’s office, Duban knew from 2003 that personal expenses of Charles Alan Pflueger were paid by the family company and were illegally deducted on corporate income tax returns as business expenses.
“Duban also knew that some personal expenses of another co-defendant were being paid for and illegally deducted by Pflueger, Inc.,” Nakakuni’s office said.
Duban also assisted in filing a income tax return in 2007 which falsely reported information about the sale of Pflueger Properties, Inc. real estate in California, the government said.
Proceeds of the sale were sent to a Swiss bank account and were not properly reported to the IRS, Duban admitted.
Duban also failed to report other foreign bank accounts in which he held interests, the government said.
As part of his plea agreement, “Duban admitted that the tax loss associated with his criminal conduct is at least $1 million,” Nakakuni said.
The younger Pflueger and two other defendants in the case, Randall Kurata and Julie Kam, pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns earlier this year.
James Pflueger is currently scheduled to go to trial before Judge Kobayashi on February 12, 2013.
He is also awaiting trial in state court on Kauai on manslaughter charges. Seven people died in flooding after a dam controlled by Pflueger failed in 2006.
I remember several weeks ago that you ran an article about how the manslaughter case was not moving forward. Today, I was looking into the Prosecuting Attorney candidates and saw that Kevin Takata was hired at the AGs office to prosecute the manslaugter case against James Pflueger. From your article about Kevin Takata: "His duties have included prosecution of internet crimes and the pending manslaughter case against car dealer and real estate developer James Pflueger." Do you know what happened? Did he drop the case to run for Prosecutor? Was he removed from the case? If he was hired to do the case, and then dropped the case, I think that is something that public should know about. The SA didn't mention anything about the case today in their profile of him, so I really would like to know what is going on.
Kevin Takata was recruited by former attorney general Mark Bennett to work on the prosecution against James Pflueger but when Takata announced he was running for city prosecutor, he had to go on leave. The governor mandated that all candidates for office in state government must do that until after the election. The Pflueger case was passed on to another prosecutor who agreed to the delay in the trial date. If Takata loses the election to Kaneshiro, he will be back at the ag's office, likely back on that case. If he wins, the case will be permanently reassigned. But if the case had gone to trial in October as it was set to do, Takata would not have been able to try the case per the governor's mandate. Let me know if that makes sense or if you have other questions.
Thanks Malia. Didn't know all that. Keep up the great work.
Thanks from me too! Honestly, if it weren't for you, we'd have no idea what was going on in the Ka Loko case. Nobody deems it necessary to keep the victims families (or at least our's) in the loop.
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