Gregory A. White, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced today that an information was filed against Bernard J. Johnson, charging him with willfully attempting to evade personal income taxes for the years 2001 through 2004. The information alleges that Johnson attempted to evade taxes totaling approximately $313,099 for those four years, owing on unreported taxable income of approximately $1,068,387. According to court records, Johnson resides in North Canton, Ohio.

The information charges that for the years 2001, 2002, and 2004, Johnson attempted to evade taxes by filing false and fraudulent joint income tax returns, on which he understated his taxable income by a combined total of approximately $784,844 and understated the taxes owing on that income by approximately $245,917. For the year 2003, the information charges that Johnson failed to file a tax return and attempted to evade taxes of approximately $74,982 by concealing his receipt and disposition of approximately $283,443 of taxable income through the following means: (a) using a series of trust or “common law business organization” (“CBO”) entities to disguise his income by transferring funds totaling approximately $293,600 from his corporate dental practice to one of the entities, mostly recorded on his dental practice records as fees for services, and then using the CBO entities to make personal expenditures and investments in his behalf; (b) filing a false corporation income tax return for his dental business, which claimed false deductions for fees that actually constituted part of the fund transfers from the dental practice to one of his CBO bank accounts; and (c) causing a professional tax preparer to prepare a false joint individual income tax return for that year on his and his wife’s behalf, which did not report the personal income he received through the fund transfers from his dental practice to his CBO bank accounts.

If convicted, the defendant’s sentence will be determined by the Court after review of factors unique to this case, including the defendant’s prior criminal record, if any, the defendant’s role in the offense and the characteristics of the violation. In all cases the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in most cases it will be less than the maximum.

The government’s case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney John M. Siegel, following a grand jury investigation conducted with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, Akron, Ohio.

An information is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. A defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.